Amir Jina is an Assistant Professor at Harris Public Policy and an Affiliated Scholar at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). Amir’s research in environmental and development economics focuses on the role of the environment in shaping how societies develop. This research combines economics with methods from climate science and remote sensing to understand the impacts of climate in both rich and poor countries, and has involved 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, working on the economic analysis of the Risky Business initiative, an independent assessment of the economic risks posed by a changing climate in the US. Amir is a founding member of the Climate Impact Lab – an interdisciplinary collaboration examining the socioeconomic impacts of climate change around the world – and was also a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Economics Department of University of Chicago.
Amir received a 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.