people

Ariel Ortiz-Bobea | Associate Professor

Prof. Ortiz-Bobea is an applied economist with interests in agricultural, environmental and development economics. His recent research quantifies the impacts of climate change on agriculture and other sectors using econometric techniques. He joined Cornell in 2014 after a brief stint at Resources for the Future. Prior to graduate school he served as Special Assistant to the Minister of the Environment of the Dominican Republic. He obtained a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland, an MPA from Syracuse University (Maxwell) and a Diplôme d’Ingénieur from the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (now AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Saclay) in France.

Tzu-Hui Chen | Postdoc (joining Summer 2026)

Tzu-Hui Chen is completing her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis. Her research spans agricultural, environmental, and health economics, with a focus on the unintended consequences of agricultural and environmental policies. Her work uses remote sensing data and applied econometric methods to study topics such as the health effects of agrochemical exposure and the land-use impacts of biofuel policies.

Shuo Yu | Postdoc (joining Summer 2026)

Shuo Yu is completing her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on regenerative agriculture, conservation policy, and crop insurance, combining econometric methods with satellite data to study how agricultural and environmental policies affect sustainability and climate adaptation.

Yurou He | PhD candidate, Applied Economics and Management

Yurou He is a Ph.D. candidate at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. She studies the impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies, with a focus on human economic behavior in response to environmental challenges. Her research centers on designing incentive structures in land assembly to ensure that strategies for climate-driven land use changes and displacement are both economically viable and socially just. Yurou aims to provide policymakers with actionable insights to improve the efficiency and equity of policies for land conservation and the relocation of vulnerable communities. She plans to be on the job market in the late Fall of 2026.

Jerzy Jaromczyk | PhD candidate, Applied Economics and Management

Jerzy Jaromczyk is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Economics and Management interested in researching questions in agricultural and environmental economics, and agricultural finance. Prior to his doctoral studies, Jerzy co-directed an agricultural extension education program that served New York State farmers and worked as an analyst at a private firm developing index-based insurance products. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Finance from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and a Masters of Science in Agricultural Economics from the University of Kentucky.

Jeisson Prieto | PhD candidate, Applied Economics and Management

Jeisson Prieto is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Economics and Management. Before coming to Cornell University, he received his BEng in Systems Engineering and MSc in Applied Mathematics from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His current research is focused in Environmental and Agricultural Economics, Computational Sustainability, and Complex Systems.

Ayşegül Kılınç | PhD student, Natural Resources and the Environment

Ayşegül Kılınç is a PhD student and Fulbright grantee in Natural Resources and the Environment. Her research interests focus on the global implications and dynamic environmental and economic effects of climate policies, particularly carbon border adjustments. She aims to analyze how these policies affect greenhouse gas emissions trajectories, international trade flows, sectoral production patterns, and decarbonization strategies. Prior to Cornell, Ayşegül worked in various sustainability roles in both the corporate sector and consultancy. She holds an MS in Earth System Science and a BS in Environmental Engineering from Middle East Technical University.

Ruiyi Ouyang | PhD student, Applied Economics and Managment

Ruiyi Ouyang is a PhD student at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. His research focuses on natural disasters and climate change. In particular, he studies consumer responses to natural disasters such as hurricanes using high-frequency scanner data. He is also interested in how climate change affects farm-level revenue, profits, and adaptation strategies. His work aims to integrate forecasting systems with the traditional envelope-theorem framework used in the climate economics literature to better understand how human behavior responds to climate change. Prior to his doctoral studies, Ruiyi earned a Master of Science in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Yichen Li | MS student, Applied Economics and Managment

Yichen Li is an MS student at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. She studies environmental, energy, and resource economics. She is particularly interested in exploring the relationship between environmental change and human behavior. Her research examines how climate change influences human responses, including migration, adaptation strategies, and decision-making under environmental stress.