I am an inter-disciplinary social scientist with expertise in agricultural governance, economics, and politics.

I explore how economic principles about competition and markets are used to advance environmental ends and the problems therein. Specifically, I examine the challenges in governing agri-environmental transitions, biodiversity losses on private lands, and climate mitigation.

I rely on a combination of methodological approaches (with an emphasis on case studies) to examine how payments/markets for ecosystem services, offsetting, and green finance schemes are coordinated in place, and globally. My current projects focus on carbon offsetting schemes in US, Europe, and India, and will generate one of the largest datasets of international offset case studies. Much of my past work was on US agri-environmental policies and on payments for ecosystem services schemes in Indonesia.

My unique training, research approach, and work experience lends itself to a critical but pragmatic discussion on how to tap economic ideas along with state and community institutions to build a just and sustainable future.

Starting Aug 2021, I am a Social Science Research Fellow at the New Carbon Economy Consortium (NCEC), hosted by the Global Futures Laboratory in Arizona State University.

Theoretically

I fit somewhere between ecological economics, political ecology, and science and technology studies (STS).

Methodologically

I use mixed research methods including interviews, surveys, and ethnography, as well as econometrics and spatial analysis.

In 2021, I completed a Faculty Fellowship at the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University.

I have a Ph.D. in “Natural Resources and the Environment” (2018) and a Masters in Public Administration (2013) from Cornell University. My Bachelor’s training was in Economics and Statistics at Singapore Management University (2007).

I have also worked as an Applied Economist in the public and private sectors. As a part of the Green India States Trust, I worked on the first-ever “Green Accounting for Indian States Project” and developed a compendium of international case studies that accompanied the first report by the UN Environmental Program initiative: “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.” At Centennial Group, I worked with the Asian Development Bank to develop a set of synthesis reports (later collated in a book) examining the socio-economic implications of the 2008 Financial Crisis for Asian countries.

I am active in many academic societies such as: American Association of Geographers (AAG), the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), the International Sociological Association (ISA), and the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).