Cynthia Lin LawellView profile
Associate Professor
Cynthia Lin Lawell is an Associate Professor and holds the Robert Dyson Sesquicentennial Chair in Environmental, Energy and Resource Economics at Cornell University's Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. She is a prominent economist with expertise spanning environmental, energy, and resource economics, using advanced econometric methods to address critical policy questions. Dr. Lin Lawell earned her Ph.D., A.M., and A.B. from Harvard University, where she pursued a multidisciplinary major in Environmental Science and Public Policy. Her undergraduate thesis in atmospheric chemistry won the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize and led to peer-reviewed publications. She has received numerous prestigious awards including the Harvard University Stone Fellow Award, the International Society for New Institutional Economics Award for the Best Ph.D. Dissertation, and the UC-Davis Hellman Fellowship. Her research focuses on environmental, energy, and resource economics, with particular expertise in structural econometric modeling of dynamic games, applied econometrics, and policy analysis. She has published in top journals including the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and Energy Journal. Her work examines strategic decision-making in resource extraction, effectiveness of environmental policies, energy efficiency, water management, and renewable energy development. Dr. Lin Lawell's research has been widely featured in major media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Guardian. Her analysis of Danish wind energy policy demonstrated that government policies, rather than technological advantages, drove Denmark's leadership in wind energy. Her work on Chinese energy policies revealed mixed effectiveness across different policy instruments. Harvard University Stone Fellow Award for Best Paper Written by a Doctoral Student in Environmental and Resource Policy International Society for New Institutional Economics Award for the Best Ph.D. Dissertation 2011 UC-Davis Hellman Fellowship for promising young faculty RePEc Top 3% Female Economists Based on Publications in Last 10 Years 2017 Cornell University Knowledge Matters Fellow Dr. Lin Lawell directs two major research initiatives at Cornell: the Dynamics, Economics, Econometrics, Policy, and Games: Rigorous Environmental, Energy, Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Development Analysis and Research (DEEP-GREEN-RADAR) and the Think-tank for Resources, Energy, and the Environment: Science and Policy-related Economic Analysis and Research (TREESPEAR). She also serves as President of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics Bay Area Chapter and has received multiple grants supporting her research on agricultural-to-energy land use conversions and sustainable resource management.












