Lisa A Robinson

Lisa A. Robinson is a Senior Research Scientist and Deputy Director of the Center for Health Decision Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also affiliated with the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE), the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, and the Department of Environmental Health. Her work spans across multiple institutions and research centers, focusing on economic evaluation of health and environmental policies.

Dr. Robinson holds a BA in Political Science/International Relations from Carleton College (1979) and an MPP in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School (1982). Her educational background provided the foundation for her career in policy analysis and benefit-cost assessment.

Her research and teaching focus on benefit-cost analysis and economic evaluation of environmental, health, and safety policies. She has developed methods for estimating the value of mortality risk reductions (VSL), explored implications of behavioral economics for benefit-cost analysis, and addressed distributional impacts across different socioeconomic groups. Her work applies these methods across high-, middle-, and low-income settings, addressing policy issues including vaccine mandates, hazard warnings, and climate change health impacts.

Her publication record shows consistent contributions to benefit-cost analysis methodology, with recent work focusing on ethics in benefit-cost analysis (2025), social welfare approaches (2025), electric school buses' health benefits (2024), and COVID-19 policy analysis (2021-2023). Her research spans environmental health, climate policy, pandemic response, and global health economics, demonstrating methodological innovation across diverse policy contexts.

• Richard J. Burk Outstanding Service Award, Society for Risk Analysis (2013)
• Richard O. Zerbe Distinguished Service Award, Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (2015)
• Fellow, Society for Risk Analysis (2016)
• Best Symposium Award, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis (2019)
• Outstanding Practitioner Award, Society for Risk Analysis (2021)
• Fellow, Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (2022)
• Best Paper Award, Risk Analysis (2023)

Dr. Robinson has served on numerous expert advisory groups for U.S. and international organizations including the World Bank, WHO, OECD, and U.S. EPA. She previously served as President of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis and as Councilor and Chair of the Economics and Benefits Analysis Specialty Group of the Society for Risk Analysis. She serves on the editorial boards of Risk Analysis and the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, demonstrating her leadership in these scholarly communities.