Amir Jina is an Assistant Professor at Harris Public Policy. An environmental and development economist, his research focuses on the role of the environment and environmental change in the shaping how societies develop. He uses applied economic techniques combined with methods from climate science and remote sensing to understand the impacts of climate in both rich and poor countries, and has conducted fieldwork related to climate change adaptation with communities in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Uganda.
Prior to University of Chicago, Amir was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley where he worked on the economic analysis of the Risky Business initiative, an independent assessment of the economic risks posed by a changing climate in the U.S. He is a founding member of the Climate Impact Lab – an interdisciplinary collaboration examining the socioeconomic impacts of climate change around the world. Amir was also a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Economics Department of University of Chicago, and a Senior Fellow at the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago (EPIC).
Amir received his Ph.D. in Sustainable Development and M.A. in Climate and Society both from Columbia University, B.A.s in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from Trinity College, Dublin, and previously worked with the Red Cross/Red Crescent in South Asia.