News

Theo is an undegraduate student in the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on improving wildfire risk predictions by combining advanced dynamic models with time series analysis to identify model limitations and better understand regional wildfire risks.

PCHES participants presented new research at the 2024 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.

Tiemeng Ma, a Ph.D. candidate at Penn State, won a runner-up award for Best Student Paper at the 2024 USAEE conference for her research on the economic impacts of public safety power shutoffs in California.

A team of researchers Jeffrey Nucciarone and Joseph Perla from Penn State has been recognized for their innovative work in computational modeling with an award at the Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) Conference.

Keiko is a PhD student in the Department of Climate, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on developing a theoretical framework to understand how atmospheric temperature distribution shifts over time, aiming to improve predictions.

The Groundwater and Society Workshop brought together experts in groundwater modeling, natural resource economics, and multi-sector dynamics to assess the current state of human–natural systems research and identify key challenges and future directions in groundwater studies.

Edouard is a Postdoc in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education at Penn State. His research focuses on the microeconomic aspects of human responses to natural disasters.

A new study by PCHES researcher Doug Wrenn finds that people are willing to live in locations where there is a greater risk of extreme weather and natural disasters if it brings an increase to their overall economic well-being.

PCHES researchers at Boston University find that extreme heat is placing growing strain on the health and well-being of an aging population.

Atieh is a Postdoc in the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on enhancing risk estimation by improving our understanding of different components of the risk.

Spencer is a CAT modeler at State Farm and a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on studying the limitation of our historical data and then trying to quantify the uncertainty from future weather patterns.

The United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) awarded ‘Best Student Paper’ to PCHES student, Jill Horing, at the 39th USAEE/IAEE Conference for her work on ‘Economic impacts of wildfire adaptation: Public Safety Power Shutoffs in California’.

Iman is a postdoc at the Center for Global Trade Analysis (GTAP) at Purdue. He has been working on the economic analysis of compound extremes, year-on-year volatilities, and adaptation.

Sizhuo is a Ph.D. candidate in Energy, Environmental, and Food Economics at Penn State. Her research in natural resource economics uses microeconometric methods to study natural hazard adaptation and resilience.

Thomas is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University. At the intersection of natural and social sciences, his research in natural resource economics leverages applied econometrics and statistics to explore the causal impacts of human activities on natural systems.

Energy systems, especially the electric-power system, are susceptible to natural stressors such as wildfires, severe storms, extreme temperatures and long-term disruptions of the hydrological cycle.

Brayam is a Ph.D. candidate in Energy Systems Engineering at Penn State. His research is primarily focused on applying mathematical optimization methods and data analysis techniques to address several issues in the power system operation and planning.

PCHES participants from five universities presented new research at the 2021 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.

PCHES researchers find corn, or maize, yields to be very sensitive to extreme heat and that models used by the agriculture industry are ineffective at predicting the impact of extended periods of harsh conditions.

Karen Fisher-Vanden, co-Director of PCHES, has been elected President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE).

Brian is a Ph.D. candidate in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. His research uses microeconometric methods and model diagnostics to understand how people interact with the natural world.

Joseph Perla is a Ph.D. candidate in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State. His research interest lies in natural resource economics and computable general equilibrium models.

If the agricultural sector fails to adjust better to future temperature and precipitation, food production is set to fall – 10% by mid-century and 25% by 2100 – affecting the supply of a growing world population, a new PCHES study has found.

Jiameng Zheng is a Ph.D. candidate at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin. Her research focuses on using applied microeconomic theory, applied econometrics, and policy analysis to study the economics of natural resource challenges and policy, with a focus on water use and treatment regulations.

Florian Grosset is a fourth-year Ph.D. student at Columbia University. He primarily investigates the ways in which individuals, firms, and policy-makers cope with risk – as well as the distortions that their risk-coping strategies induce.

Bining Zhao is a postdoc in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State. She is currently working with Dr. Mort Webster to study stochastic generation expansion planning problems in electricity systems and electricity market reformation.

PCHES participants across four institutions attended and presented at the 2020 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.

Alfredo is a postdoc in the Department of Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication at Purdue University. He is currently working with Dr. Thomas Hertel studying the economic impacts of flooding in the US and the impact of global trade on biodiversity.

Samantha is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Penn State Department of Statistics. Her research interests include spatio-temporal modeling and modeling extreme precipitation events.

PCHES researchers Klaus Keller and Vivek Srikrishnan are taking leading roles in the MultiSector Dynamics (MSD) collaborative forum.

David Lafferty is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are centered around quantifying uncertainty in earth system models.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has posed new challenges for researchers, especially when it comes to holding national meetings. The PCHES leadership team showcased its adaptability this June by successfully hosting the third annual Research Outreach Meeting in remote format.

Julian Plough is a Ph.D. student at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on applied statistics as well as natural resources economics and management.

Vijay is a Ph.D. student in Industrial Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. His research interest focuses on development of methods for sequential decision making under uncertainty, with an application towards power system planning.

Haochen is a PhD student in Penn State’s Department of Geosciences. He has a background in Computer Engineering and Earth System Science. Haochen’s research interests include earth system science, atmospheric impacts and how their uncertainties influence people’s decision making.

Jill is a PhD student in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Her work focuses on modeling complex environmental systems to improve scientific understanding and decision making.

The Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) is currently accepting applications for two new postdoctoral scholar positions, a scientific programmer, and research data management specialist.

The Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) invites applications for a full-time Scientific Programmer to join the PCHES research team.

The Fall 2017 issue of Research/Penn State, an e-magazine showcasing Penn State’s $836-million-per-year research program, featured PCHES in the article “Power Up!” by Krista Weidner which discusses Penn State’s new data center.

A new PCHES study has found that expanding irrigation without major improvements in efficiency could have unintended negative consequences for development efforts and long-term regional outcomes in many parts of the world.

A $20 million, five-year project with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) looks to create a state-of-the-art framework of computational tools that will help to assess the impacts of weather-related variability and change.