SHORT BIO
Jill Caviglia-Harris is Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Salisbury University. Her scholarship spans environmental and development economics, economics education, and interdisciplinary research on sustainability. Over the past three decades, she has worked extensively in the Brazilian Amazon, where she combines long-term field research with spatial and economic analyses to examine how policies, institutions, and household decision-making shape land-use change, agricultural production, climate resilience, and conservation outcomes. Her work seeks to generate evidence that informs environmental and development policy while advancing understanding of the relationships among economic development, environmental sustainability, and human well-being.
A second area of her research focuses on economics education. She develops and evaluates innovative instructional approaches that connect students with contemporary economic research, improve engagement and belonging, and broaden participation in economics. Her recent work includes Uncommon Econ, a National Science Foundation-funded curriculum that integrates economic research, professionally produced videos, and active classroom discussion into introductory economics courses.
Professor Caviglia-Harris has received more than $3 million in external funding from organizations including the National Science Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, Resources for the Future, the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), and the CSWEP-SSRC Women in Economics and Mathematics Research Consortium. Her research has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, World Development, Nature, Environment and Development Economics, and the Journal of Economic Education.
Her contributions to research, teaching, and service have been recognized through numerous honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Southern Economic Association's Kenneth G. Elzinga Teaching Award, the Leopold Leadership Fellowship at Stanford University, the AERE Distinguished Service Award, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards from both the American Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association.
Professor Caviglia-Harris received B.S. degrees in Mathematical Economics and English Literature from Binghamton University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Tennessee. She teaches courses in environmental and natural resource economics and microeconomics.
