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Lori Bennear Named Grainger Associate Professor of Energy Economics and Policy

Lori Bennear

Lori Snyder Bennear, associate professor of environmental economics and policy at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, has been named the university’s inaugural Juli Plant Grainger Associate Professor of Energy Economics and Policy.

She will assume the Grainger Professorship and begin a concurrent one-year term as associate director for educational programs at the Duke University Energy Initiative on July 1.

Bennear is widely cited for her research and scholarship on quantitative measures to assess the effectiveness of environmental policies and regulatory regimes.

As part of her new appointments, she will apply her expertise to helping direct and develop interdisciplinary faculty-student research projects for Duke’s Bass Connections in Energy program, which is designed to provide students at all levels and in all programs of study the knowledge, skills and experience needed to play leadership roles in a rapidly evolving clean energy future.

“Through her unbiased and clear-eyed scholarship, Lori is helping reshape how we evaluate the real-world impacts of environmental regulations and measure their successes and shortcomings. She challenges herself, her colleagues and her students to ask the tough questions,” said Jeffrey Vincent, Stanback Dean at the Nicholas School. “Her unwavering integrity and ingenuity, and her passion for teaching and mentoring, make her an exemplary choice as our inaugural Grainger Associate Professor.”

“Lori Bennear is deeply deserving of this recognition. She is an accomplished scholar, a terrific teacher and a wonderful citizen of Duke. As the Energy Initiative’s associate director for educational programs, she has helped strengthen the Bass Connections Energy theme and many other dimensions of energy education at Duke,” said Brian Murray, interim director of the Energy Initiative and director of the Environmental Economics Program at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

“Lori Bennear has led several highly successful Bass Connections research teams, helped to reconstruct the Nicholas School’s gateway course on Environmental Science & Policy around collaborative, problem-centered research modules and provided superb leadership as the head of the Bass Connections program’s Energy theme,” said Edward Balleisen, vice provost for interdisciplinary studies. “She is a fantastic choice for the Grainger Chair, one of the first Bass Connections chairs ready to be awarded.”

Bennear received a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University in 2004, a Master of Arts degree in economics from Yale University in 1996, and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in economics and environmental studies from Occidental College in 1995.

Her research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of flexible environmental policies including information disclosure regulations, management-based regulations, liability regimes and demand-side management programs. She has applied these evaluations across a range of environmental domains including energy, toxics and drinking water. Her work has been published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS), Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environment and Development Economics, Marine Resource Economics and Nature: Ecology and Evolution, among other leading peer-reviewed journals. 

Bennear joined Duke’s faculty in 2004 as assistant professor of environmental economics and policy. She was promoted to associate professor in 2013.

In addition to her primary appointment at the Nicholas School, Bennear holds secondary faculty appointments at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and its Economics Department. She also serves as faculty co-director of the Rethinking Regulation Program at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Originally posted on the Nicholas School of the Environment website

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