The Emerging Age of Data-Driven Policy Design: Examples from Trying to Manage the Global Climate

Solomon Hsiang combines data with mathematical models to understand how society and the environment influence one another. In particular, he focuses on how policy can encourage economic development while managing the global climate. His research has been published in Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hsiang earned a BS in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science and a BS in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he received a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Applied Econometrics at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at Princeton University. Hsiang is currently an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER.

In 2013, Hsiang became the inaugural recipient of the American Geophysical Union’s Science for Solutions Award for “significant contributions in the application and use of Earth and space sciences to solve societal problems”.

In 2014, Hsiang was named in Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in Law and Policy.