I am currently a postdoctoral scholar affiliated with the NatCap TEEMs research center in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. My primary research focuses on the intersection of environmental and development economics, with a particular emphasis on forests. I also have additional interests in ecosystem services and natural capital accounting. My goal is to enhance public policy-making by examining the economic impacts of environmental policies and the environmental consequences of economic development through transdisciplinary approaches.

I earned my Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota in February 2025, where I conducted my doctoral research under the supervision of Dr. Marc F. Bellemare and Dr. Stephen Polasky. My dissertation explores the interrelationships between forests and humans,addressing topics such as poverty alleviation and forest conservation, large-scale tree planting and local economic development, and the connections between reforestation through payments for ecosystem services (PES) and rural livelihoods. My job market paper reveals that rural poverty alleviation in China significantly increases forest cover, with carbon storage benefits valued at nearly five times the intervention cost. The primary mechanism is relocation through poverty alleviation, presenting a novel, cost-effective strategy for forest conservation via poverty reduction.