Current Students
Biographical Profiles of Current Ph.D. Students
Brian is a fourth-year student in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP) Ph.D. program at Princeton. Growing up in the Bay Area, he refused to leave California and majored in economics at the University of California, Davis. As an undergraduate, he worked with Dr. Katherine Eriksson on research related to economic history. After, he moved to Taipei, Taiwan, where he earned his master’s degree in agricultural economics at National Taiwan University with the support of the Fulbright Program. During this time, he worked with Dr. Hung-Hao Chang on research related to agricultural policy and farm household economics in Taiwan. He is interested in inter-disciplinary research at the nexus of agricultural economics, environmental policy, and conservation science. In his free time, he enjoys any and all racket sports such as badminton and tennis, although he should probably focus on mastering one.
Jieyi is a Ph.D. student in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP) program at SPIA. She earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations from Sun Yat-sen University but was curious about environmental and energy issues. Driven by her curiosity, she obtained a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University studying environmental and energy policy and a master’s degree in environmental science from Yale University focusing on the impacts of air pollution on different groups of people. She also worked as a research assistant at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C., conducting research related to China’s emissions trading system and applications of satellite data. At Princeton, she hopes to further investigate and develop solutions to improve both the environment and human wellbeing in the developing world.
Beichen is a second-year Ph.D. student in the STEP cluster, co-advised by Prof. Michael Oppenheimer and Prof. Denise Mauzerall. He models for large-scale climate challenges using computation, econometrics, and Earth sciences. Potential areas of application include energy, water, and agriculture, which he respectively studied at MIT, UC San Diego, and Purdue. Outside research, he loves visual arts, cross-cultural communication, and nontraditional biography. Feel free to stay tuned at his personal website: https://beichenlyu.com.
Prior to attending Princeton, Jack graduated with a master's degree in environmental science from Yale School of the Environment. His master's thesis examines the Chilean Constitutional Convention of 2022, considers its environmental justice implications, and addresses the rejection of the proposed constitution. Jack graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science from Furman University, where he majored in sustainability science and Spanish language and literature, with a minor in Latin American and LatinX studies. His undergraduate thesis maps ecosystem services geographically and examines policy mechanisms that contribute to differing levels of ecosystem service provisioning. He has additionally earned an Associate of Arts from Greenville Technical College. At Princeton, Jack will continue to research environmental justice policy and compare policies from various international contexts.
Malini is a Ph.D. student in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP) program at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Malini grew up in Frederick, Maryland, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental engineering from Columbia University. Prior to Princeton, Malini was based in San Francisco, where she was a senior consultant at Ramboll, specializing in air quality modeling, climate change mitigation, and human health risk assessment. Her research is focused on the deep decarbonization of the power sector in India, and she uses the tools of power system modeling and air quality modeling to understand the air-climate-health tradeoffs of electricity policy choices.