Katharine Sims is a Professor in the Economics and Environmental Studies Departments at Amherst College. She studies how policies simultaneously affect environmental protection and economic development and how changes in policy design can improve the balance between multiple social goals. She has led long-term evaluations of land conservation policies including protected areas, payments for environmental services and community forestry in Mexico, Thailand, Nepal and the U.S. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University and a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, the World Bank’s Impact Evaluation to Development Impact program, the Andrew Carnegie Fellows program and the Highstead Foundation. She hopes to contribute to dialogue between economics, science, and social justice and to conservation policy that protects ecosystems while allowing local economies and communities to thrive. She enjoys teaching classes in econometrics, environmental and natural resource economics, environment and development, and introductory economics with environmental applications.