Katharine Sims

Katharine Sims is a professor in the Economics and Environmental Studies departments at Amherst College. Kate’s research seeks to understand how land conservation policy can successfully balance environmental protection and economic development. Although hailing from Massachusetts, she has led impact evaluations of protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, community forestry, and household energy technologies in multiple settings including Mexico, Thailand, Nepal, and China. She is currently collaborating with local partners to build and analyze three decades of data from towns and cities across New England to understand how new land protection has affected multiple economic indicators and how incorporating environmental justice criteria into conservation prioritization could improve access to nearby open space for marginalized communities. Kate lives in Amherst, where she enjoys attempting to keep up with her husband and two young boys as they hike, bike and XC ski.