Stephen Polasky

Stephen Polasky is Professor in Environmental Economics at University of Michigan.

Polasky received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan in 1986 and a B.A. from Williams College in 1979. He previously held faculty positions in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Oregon State University (1993-1999) and the Department of Economics at Boston College (1986-1993).

He served as Senior Staff Economist for environment and resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers 1998-1999.

He is currently leading efforts to develop methods to value ecosystem services for the Natural Capital Project and is co-leader of the BioSustainability project for DIVERSITAS.

He serves on the Science Advisory Board of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Board of Directors for the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, and the Board of Directors and Science Council of The Nature Conservancy.  He is a University Fellow at Resources for the Future, a Research Fellow at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, and a Research Associate in the Environmental & Energy Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His research interests include ecosystem services, natural capital, biodiversity conservation, integrating ecological and economic analysis, renewable energy, environmental regulation, and common property resources. His research papers have been published in Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, and a variety of economics, conservation and ecology journals.

He was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2010.  He was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.