Elena Irwin

Irwin serves as faculty director of OSU’s Sustainable and Resilient Economy program. Her research focuses on the economics of land use change, integrated spatial models of land use and ecosystem services in urban, urbanizing, and agricultural regions and sustainability measurement and assessment. Recent projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) include the development of spatial models of exurban land markets and integrated modeling of farmer land management, nutrient run- off and harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie. She is a Co-Investigator with the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, an NSF-funded Long Term Ecological Research project that is examining the influence of policies on urbanization patterns and ecosystem services. Irwin is currently a member of the US EPA Advisory Committee for the Sustainable and Healthy Communities Program, a board member of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and co-author of the report Advancing Land Change Modeling: Opportunities and Research Requirements (National Academies Press, 2014); and faculty leader of the Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability (EEDS) undergraduate major.