Expertise

Environmental and natural resource economics; climate change; natural hazards; geographical information systems (GIS)

At the Keough School

Sisi Meng is an assistant teaching professor of economics and technology for development in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Courses

• Applied Microeconomics for Policy Analysis (master of global affairs course for sustainable development concentration or elective)
• Cost Benefit Policy Analysis (master of global affairs elective)
• Geographical Information Systems in Social Science (master of global affairs elective)
• Quantitative Methods (core course for undergraduate major in global affairs)

Biography

Meng is a faculty affiliate of Notre Dame’s Environmental Change Initiative. She earned a PhD in economics from Florida International University in 2016 and a master’s degree in policy economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2011. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Meng was a faculty member in economics at the University of Colorado Denver.

Research and Publications

Meng’s research focuses on topics in environmental and natural resource economics, with emphasis on the economic aspects of climate change adaptation and natural hazard risk mitigation. She also focuses on the interdisciplinary studies between labor, health, development, socioeconomics, and geography to integrate multiple disciplines and techniques. She is particularly interested in applying geographic information system (GIS) techniques to spatial cost-benefit analysis of complex environmental issues. Meng aims at bringing rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis to improve climate-related decisions, and consequently improve social well-being.

Meng is currently working on several projects including households’ preferences for sea level rise adaptation policies, the socioeconomic impacts and perceptions of coastal vulnerability, and resilience of critical infrastructures in the presence of hurricanes.

Recent Work

• Assessing Impacts of Hurricane Maria for Promoting Healthcare Resilience in Puerto Rico (Public Health Disaster Research Award Program funded by the Natural Hazards Center, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Science Foundation)
• Liu Institute Justice and Asia grant recipient  for the project “Decent Work, Environmental Justice, and Fukushima”
• Promoting Community Resilience: Impact Evaluation of the US Disaster Relief Program (Funded by the United Methodist Committee on Relief)

• Organizing Decentralized Resilience in Critical Interdependent-infrastructure Systems and Processes (National Science Foundation grant)

News and Blog Posts

• Don’t Look Up! Look Around (Dignity & Development)
• Mapping multiple crises through the geographic information system (Dignity & Development)