Solomon Hsiang

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Solomon Hsiang
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NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
Occupation
  • scientist
  • economist

Solomon Hsiang is an American scientist and economist who directs the Global Policy Laboratory and is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.[1] He co-founded the Climate Impact Lab[2] and is a National Geographic Explorer. Hsiang’s work has been featured in media articles and impacted policy across international and US federal institutions.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

Education

In 2006, he received a B.S. in Ocean and Atmospheric Physics (Course XII), writing a thesis on “Ozone chemistry during global glaciations” advised by Alan Plumb, and a B.S. in International Development and Regional Planning (Course XI), both from MIT. He was mentored by David Autor, Esther Duflo, and Kerry Emanuel.

In 2011, Hsiang received a PhD in Sustainable Development at Columbia University. His dissertation developed new methods to integrate climate science, economics, and political science. His thesis advisors were Mark Cane and William Bentley MacLeod. Hsiang completed postdoctoral appointments at Princeton University with Michael Oppenheimer and the National Bureau of Economic Research with Wolfram Schlenker and David Lobell.

Career

Hsiang joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 2013 in the Goldman School of Public Policy, where he was tenured in 2015 and promoted to full professor in 2018. At Berkeley he founded the Global Policy Laboratory, an interdisciplinary research group focused on using data science to understand the effects of global environmental change and international policy on economics, conflict, health, and agriculture. In 2019 he was a visiting Professor at Stanford University.

Hsiang co-founded the Climate Impact Lab with Robert Kopp, Michael Greenstone, and Trevor Houser, a collaboration of climate scientists, economists, and computational experts. The lab conducts research and advises governments and companies[10].

Research

Hsiang’s work is characterized by applying econometrics and machine learning to questions that bridge science and economics.

Economics of Climate Change

Hsiang’s work on the economics of climate change demonstrated that high temperatures and hurricanes slowed economic growth[11][12][13], including in the United States. Hsiang’s research indicates climate change could reduce economic output and increase economic inequality[14]. In a 2017 New York Times op-ed[15], Trevor Houser and Hsiang calculated that Hurricane Maria likely destroyed 26 years of economic development in Puerto Rico.

Violent Conflict and Climate Change

Hsiang and his coauthors demonstrated that climate changes influence the likelihood of violence in human societies around the world and throughout history[16][17][18]. Hsiang’s team has calculated that global warming will increase crime and civil conflict[19].

Migration and Climate Change

In a 2014 analysis, Hsiang and coauthors demonstrated that extended periods of extreme temperatures increased migration in Indonesia[20]. With Adam Sobel, he demonstrated that weak temperature gradients in the tropics could cause extreme migrations even in a +2C warming scenario[21].

Global Policy

Hsiang’s team has analyzed the effectiveness of multilateral policies, such as lifting the UN moratorium on international trade of elephant ivory, geoengineering[22], and law of the sea[23].

Global Health

In a 2020 analysis, Hsiang’s team calculated that mortality from climate change could exceed 2018 mortality rates for all infectious diseases worldwide[24]. In work with Marshal Burke and coauthors, Hsiang and his team demonstrated that high temperature increase suicide rates in the United States and Mexico[25]. Jesse Anttila-Hughes and Hsiang showed that 12% of infant mortality in the Philippines could be traced to typhoons

COVID-19

In 2020, an analysis by Hsiang and the Global Policy Lab demonstrated that non-pharmaceutical interventions were highly effective as slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2[26][27]. They calculated that by April 2020, policies prevented 495 million infections. In an interview[28] with The Rachel Maddow Show, Hsiang stated that “[these policies] were a historic feat… that saved more lives in a shorter period than anything else in human history.”

Awards

Hsiang received the Science for Solutions Award given by the American Geophysical Union for “significant contributions in the application and use of Earth and space sciences to solve societal problems.”[29] In 2014, he was listed by Forbes Magazine in their 30 under 30 list. He was named a Kavli Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, an AI for Earth Innovation Fellow at Microsoft Corporation and the National Geographic Society in 2019[30], and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation in 2020. He was awarded the President’s Medal by the Geological Society of America in 2020[31].

Personal

Hsiang is of Chinese and Jewish descent. His parents are mathematicians. He lives with his wife in San Francisco, California.

References

  1. "Solomon Hsiang | Faculty & Affiliated Academics | Faculty & Directories | Goldman School of Public Policy | University of California, Berkeley". gspp.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  2. "About the Climate Impact Lab". Climate Impact Lab. Retrieved 2021-02-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. Obama, Barack (2017-01-13). "The irreversible momentum of clean energy". Science. 355 (6321): 126–129. doi:10.1126/science.aam6284. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 28069665.
  4. USGCRP (2018). "Fourth National Climate Assessment". nca2018.globalchange.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  5. "Macroeconomic and Financial Policies for Climate Change Mitigation: A Review of the Literature". IMF. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  6. "General Insurance Stress Test 2019 Scenario Specification, Guidelines and Instructions" (PDF). Bank of England.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. "Expected Costs of Damage From Hurricane Winds and Storm-Related Flooding" (PDF). Congressional Budget Office.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. "CBO's Projection of the Effect of Climate Change on U.S. Economic Output" (PDF). Congressional Budget Office.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. "The Economics of Climate Change: A First Fed Conference". Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  10. "Getting physical: assessing climate risks". BlackRock. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  11. Burke, Marshall; Hsiang, Solomon M.; Miguel, Edward (November 2015). "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production". Nature. 527 (7577): 235–239. doi:10.1038/nature15725. ISSN 1476-4687.
  12. Carleton, Tamma A.; Hsiang, Solomon M. (2016-09-09). "Social and economic impacts of climate". Science. 353 (6304). doi:10.1126/science.aad9837. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 27609899.
  13. Hsiang, Solomon; Kopp, Robert; Jina, Amir; Rising, James; Delgado, Michael; Mohan, Shashank; Rasmussen, D. J.; Muir-Wood, Robert; Wilson, Paul; Oppenheimer, Michael; Larsen, Kate (2017-06-30). "Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States". Science. 356 (6345): 1362–1369. doi:10.1126/science.aal4369. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 28663496.
  14. Plumer, Brad; Popovich, Nadja (2017-06-29). "As Climate Changes, Southern States Will Suffer More Than Others". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  15. Hsiang, Solomon; Houser, Trevor (2017-09-29). "Opinion | Don't Let Puerto Rico Fall Into an Economic Abyss (Published 2017)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  16. Hsiang, Solomon M. (2010-08-31). "Temperatures and cyclones strongly associated with economic production in the Caribbean and Central America". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (35): 15367–15372. doi:10.1073/pnas.1009510107. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 20713696.
  17. Hsiang, Solomon M.; Burke, Marshall; Miguel, Edward (2013-09-13). "Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict". Science. 341 (6151). doi:10.1126/science.1235367. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 24031020.
  18. Hsiang, Solomon M.; Meng, Kyle C.; Cane, Mark A. (August 2011). "Civil conflicts are associated with the global climate". Nature. 476 (7361): 438–441. doi:10.1038/nature10311. ISSN 1476-4687.
  19. Wallace-Wells, David (2017-07-14). "The Uninhabitable Earth, Annotated Edition". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  20. Bohra-Mishra, Pratikshya; Oppenheimer, Michael; Hsiang, Solomon M. (2014-07-08). "Nonlinear permanent migration response to climatic variations but minimal response to disasters". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111 (27): 9780–9785. doi:10.1073/pnas.1317166111. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 24958887.
  21. Hsiang, Solomon M.; Sobel, Adam H. (2016-06-09). "Potentially Extreme Population Displacement and Concentration in the Tropics Under Non-Extreme Warming". Scientific Reports. 6 (1): 25697. doi:10.1038/srep25697. ISSN 2045-2322.
  22. Proctor, Jonathan; Hsiang, Solomon; Burney, Jennifer; Burke, Marshall; Schlenker, Wolfram (August 2018). "Estimating global agricultural effects of geoengineering using volcanic eruptions". Nature. 560 (7719): 480–483. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0417-3. ISSN 1476-4687.
  23. Englander, Gabriel (October 2019). "Property rights and the protection of global marine resources". Nature Sustainability. 2 (10): 981–987. doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0389-9. ISSN 2398-9629.
  24. "Global death rate from rising temperatures projected to surpass the current death rate of all infectious diseases combined". Climate Impact Lab. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  25. Burke, Marshall; González, Felipe; Baylis, Patrick; Heft-Neal, Sam; Baysan, Ceren; Basu, Sanjay; Hsiang, Solomon (August 2018). "Higher temperatures increase suicide rates in the United States and Mexico". Nature Climate Change. 8 (8): 723–729. doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0222-x. ISSN 1758-6798.
  26. Hsiang, Solomon; Allen, Daniel; Annan-Phan, Sébastien; Bell, Kendon; Bolliger, Ian; Chong, Trinetta; Druckenmiller, Hannah; Huang, Luna Yue; Hultgren, Andrew; Krasovich, Emma; Lau, Peiley (August 2020). "The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic". Nature. 584 (7820): 262–267. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2404-8. ISSN 1476-4687.
  27. Achenbach, Joel; Meckler, Laura. "Shutdowns prevented 60 million coronavirus infections in the U.S., study finds". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  28. "Humankind achieves historic feat in slowing coronavirus spread". MSNBC.com. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  29. "Solomon Hsiang". Honors Program. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  30. "Eleven Changemakers Chosen as Recipients of Microsoft and National Geographic AI for Earth Innovation Grants: New grant offers awards of more than $1.2 million to advance uses of artificial intelligence in scientific exploration and research on critical environmental challenges". National Geographic Society Newsroom. 2018-12-11. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  31. "GSA News Release 20-21". www.geosociety.org. Retrieved 2021-02-19.

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