Dr. Stephen Polasky is a Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota, and a Principal Investigator at NatCap TEEMs, of which he is also a Co-Founder. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan (1986) and a B.A. from Williams College, cum laude (1979). His areas of interest include biodiversity conservation, climate change, ecosystem services, environmental economics, game theory, land economics, natural capital, natural resource economics, sustainability, and water economics. His current research focuses on the intersection of ecology and economics, addressing the impacts of land use and management on the provision and value of ecosystem services and natural capital, as well as natural capital accounting, biodiversity conservation, sustainability science, discounting and intergenerational equity, environmental policy and regulation, renewable energy, and common property resources. 

Dr. Polasky is a co-founder of the Natural Capital Alliance, a partnership between the University of Minnesota, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, The Nature Conservancy, Stanford University, the Stockholm Resilience Center, and the World Wildlife Fund, whose aim is to incorporate the value of natural capital and ecosystem services into public and private sector decision-making. He served as Senior Staff Economist for Environment and Resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 1998-1999. He is co-chair of the Biodiversity and Business Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and previously served as a coordinating lead author on nature’s contributions to people for the IPBES Global Assessment. He previously served on the Science Advisory Board for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on the Science Advisory Board for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on the Sustainability External Advisory Committee for Dow Chemical, and on the Board of Directors for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). He currently serves on TNC's Science Advisory Council, on the International Science Advisory Board for the Stockholm Resilience Center, and on the Advisory Board for the Gund Institute of Environment at the University of Vermont. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.