About

Joshua Graff Zivin holds the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at UC San Diego, with faculty positions in the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) and the Department of Economics. He serves as director of the GPS Peter F. Cowhey Center on Global Transformation, co-director of the UC San Diego Global Health Institute and research director for International Environmental and Health Studies at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC).  Graff Zivin is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.  In 2020, he co-founded Amplisal, a firm specializing in remote and hybrid workforce management, where he currently serves as COO.

Graff Zivin is an economist whose broad research interests include the environment, health, development, and innovation economics. He has published numerous articles on a wide range of topics in top economic, policy and science journals. Much of his current work is focused on three distinct areas of research: the relationship between the environment, health and human capital, the economics of innovation and productivity, and the design of health interventions and their economic impacts. 

Professor Graff Zivin received both his Ph.D. and M.S. from UC Berkeley and a B.A. from Rutgers University. Prior to joining UC San Diego in 2008, he spent 11 years on the faculty at Columbia University, where he served as professor of economics in the Mailman School of Public Health and the School of International and Public Affairs and directed the Ph.D. Program in Sustainable Development. From 2004-05, Graff Zivin served as Senior Economist for Health and the Environment on the White House Council of Economic Advisers.