Steve Polasky

Stephen Polasky is Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on issues at the intersection of ecology and economics including the value of ecosystem services and natural capital, biodiversity conservation, land use, sustainability, common property resources, and environmental regulation. He is a co-founder of the Natural Capital Project. He served as Senior Staff Economist for environment and resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers 1998-1999. He is co-chair of the Biodiversity and Business Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and previously served as a coordinating lead author on nature’s contributions to people for the IPBES Global Assessment. He has served on the Board of Directors for The Nature Conservancy, the Science Advisory Boards of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Sustainability External Advisory Committee of Dow Chemical Company. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Williams College.