HEEP Director Robert Stavins Named to Honorary Visiting Professorship at Cornell University

Harvard Environmental Economics Program (HEEP) Director Robert Stavins, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, has been named an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large (ADW-PAL) at Cornell University, an honorary non-resident appointment.

The Program was established in celebration of Cornell’s first centenary and named in honor of its first President, Andrew Dickson White, who expressed concern lest Cornell’s first faculty, “remote from great cities and centers of thought and action…lose connection with the world at large, save through books…’bred in and in’ and become provincial in spirit.” To help insure this would not happen, he proposed “the establishment of a system of non-resident professors,” selected for their distinguished achievements in diverse disciplines and walks of life, who would visit the University periodically over extended periods of time.

The Program for Professors-at-Large was formally inaugurated in 1965, Cornell’s centennial year, to establish ties with individuals who have achieved outstanding international distinction in the humanities, the natural or social sciences or the learned professions, or have achieved such distinction and have demonstrated broad intellectual interests through their activity in such fields as public affairs, literature, or the creative arts.

During their six-year term of appointment, each ADW-PAL visits campus for approximately one week in each three-year period during the academic year while Cornell classes are in session. The Program places a strong emphasis on interaction with students, particularly undergraduates, and encourages the visiting professors to also engage with the greater Ithaca community. Currently, at any one time, as many as 20 outstanding intellectuals of international distinction in the arts, humanities, life sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences participate in the program.

“I very much look forward to participating in the intellectual life of Cornell during this appointment, and to having the opportunity to spend time again in Ithaca, which I was very pleased to make my home for several years, some four decades ago, when I earned my master’s degree there in agricultural economics, before coming to Harvard to study for my PhD degree in economics,” said Stavins. “The academic community at Cornell is rich and vibrant and is engaged in both scholarly and policy-focused research and discussion on a wide range of topics, including environmental economics and climate change, and I look forward to contributing to those discussions and to learning from them.”

The complete 2023-24 cohort of ADW-PALs includes:

Arts: Oskar Eustis, Keri Putnam, and Dawn Upshaw

Humanities: James Balog, Sir Hilary Beckles, MartÍn Caparrós, and Tayari Jones

Life Sciences: May Berenbaum, Bram Bovaerts, Stephen Quake, and Ellen Rothenberg

Physical Sciences: Michel Devoret, Jordan Ellenberg, Carl Wieman, and Mabel O. Wilson

Social Sciences: Steven Levitsky, Lynn Meskell, Theda Skocpol, and Robert Stavins

Like Stavins, Professors Levitsky and Skocpol are also permanent members of the Harvard faculty.