Robert is an interdisciplinary land system scientist who combines approaches from economics, geography and ecology to explore the way society uses and governs natural resources. He is an Assistant Professor in UCSB’s Environmental Studies Program and the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and is a Research Associate at the Environmental Markets Solutions Lab. Robert earned his Ph.D. from the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program for Environment and Resources at Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Carlson Lab at the University of Hawaii. Robert’s nonacademic career has included field botany in the Sierra Nevada, climate policy analysis and advocacy in Washington, DC, and work to help establish a successful ag-tech startup in Silicon Valley. His curriculum vitae is available here, and his google scholar profile is available here.

Jason Benedict is an Assistant Research Specialist who joined CEL in January 2018. Jason received his B.S degree in Remote Sensing from University of Technology Malaysia in 2004. He is interested in using data science and geospatial technologies to map supply chains and better understand the environmental and social impacts of no deforestation, no peat, no exploitation (NDPE) policies and eco-certification in oil palm supply chains. Prior to joining the lab, Jason was the Data Analytics and Visualization Lead at The Forest Trust in Malaysia. In his spare time, Jason enjoys going for a good run, catching a movie, reading and following his favorite football team, Liverpool FC.

Alice Lépissier is a PhD candidate at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UCSB. She is a political economist and a data scientist who works on tropical deforestation, illicit financial flows, and climate change policy. In her work, she uses techniques from econometrics and machine learning to answer questions about pressing environmental problems. Her research interests include market-driven environmental governance schemes, the trade in illegal timber, and methods for causal inference. Prior to joining UCSB, Alice was a Research Associate at the Center for Global Development. She holds a Masters in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris and École Polytechnique, and a Masters in Economic History from the London School of Economics. Her website is https://alicelepissier.com/.

Albert is a PhD student pursuing the Economics and Environmental Science (EES) emphasis at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. He graduated from Willamette University with his BA in Mathematics and Economics. Albert's research interests lie in environmental economics and tend to use a combination of microeconomic theory, quasi-experimental econometric methods, and remotely sensed data. His current projects include the carbon, biodiversity, and poverty impacts of payments for native reforestation and econometric methodology using satellite data. When not thinking about environmental economics, he can be found hiking on one of the local trails or casting a fly to a hungry trout. His website is https://www.garcia-alberto.com/.

Yifan (Flora) He is a doctoral student at the Bren School, UCSB. She combines political science and land system science to study dynamics in rural land governance and its environmental and social outcomes, and in particular, how out-migration interacts with rural land tenure and land use. Previously, she was a social scientist at Conservation International, where she worked towards building global geodatabases that document the diversity and dynamics of area-based conservation governance systems. She holds a Master of Science in conservation ecology and environmental informatics from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Hong Kong. She speaks Mandarin, Hakka, English, and Spanish, and is learning Portuguese. Her website is https://yifan-he.com/.

Linus is a PhD student pursuing the Economics and Environmental Science emphasis at the Bren School. He is a Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute and its former Director of Conservation and Food & Agriculture. Linus has worked for several conservation organizations including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and is a former PERC Lone Mountain Fellow. Linus’s interests center on land use, specifically on how to design and evaluate policies that drive agricultural intensification while also protecting natural habitats. Linus has published widely in the areas of conservation, agriculture, and environmental policy, and his work has been featured in publications such as the New York Times and The Economist. Linus holds an MESc from Yale’s School of the Environment and a BA in Geography from Cambridge University. Linus was born and raised in Sweden and has been based in the US since 2011. Linus’s website can be accessed at https://linusblomqvist.com.