Bio

Marta Vicarelli is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research focuses on: (i) the risks and the socio-economic impacts of climate variability and climate change; (ii) the economics of Nature-based Solutions for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation; (iii) climate resilience and green-recovery strategies; and (iv) renewable energy policy. 

From 2004 to 2010, she worked as research fellow at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies investigating observed impacts and responses to climate change. She is contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group II, on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. She is the recipient of the Peccei Fellowship (2007) awarded by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna for her work on integrating inter annual climate variability forecasts into weather-indexed crop insurance. In 2009 she was awarded the Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowship by the Harvard University Sustainability Science Program; the award came with the invitation to work as Fellow at the Harvard University’s Center for International Development from 2009 to 2011. She joined the Yale University Climate and Energy Institute as postdoctoral fellow in 2011 until 2013 investigating the exposure in early life to severe climate-related weather shocks (i.e. in utero and in the first years of life) and the economic consequences on long-term health, cognitive development and professional/educational attainment. 

She holds a B.S. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, a Master of Environmental Economics from the École Polytechnique, as well as a Master of International Affairs and a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from Columbia University.