I am a PhD student in Economics and Environmental Science at University of California, Santa Barbara and the former director of the Conservation and Food & Agriculture programs at the Breakthrough Institute, where I am also a Senior Fellow. I was one of the authors of the Ecomodernist Manifesto. My work lies at the intersection of conservation and agriculture, and ranges from evaluating impacts of zero-deforestation policies to modeling trends in crop yields. I use methods from diverse fields, with an emphasis on econometrics and causal inference.

I have co-authored ten peer-reviewed papers, two book chapters, and four reports. I have edited and contributed to the Breakthrough Institute’s web series The Future of Food, and written blogs and essays on issues ranging from decoupling to land sparing, precision agriculture, aquaculture, feedlots, and fertilizers.

My work has been featured in publications such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, New Scientist, Wired, New York Times, The Guardian, and many others.

I hold an MESc from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where I specialized in environmental economics, and a BA in Geography from Cambridge University. I have worked for several conservation organizations including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and BirdLife Europe.

My interest in conservation and wildlife has taken me into the field, with experiences ranging from integrated conservation and development projects in rural Ecuador, raptor migration in the Mediterranean, livelihoods and endangered species conservation in the highlands of Kenya, biological surveys in Mediterranean wetlands, to bird banding on the Baltic Sea island of Öland. Outside of work, I have also had the privilege of visiting some of the world’s most spectacular sites for nature and wildlife, including the Brazilian Pantanal, the Galapagos Islands, various corners of the Amazon Basin, the Andes, Serengeti, and Anatolia.

I was born and raised in Sweden and have been based in the US since 2011. In my free time, I enjoy birding, motorcycling, photography, and jazz, although not all at the same time.

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