Silvia Secchi

Title & Affiliation
Senior Research Fellow Environmental Policy Research Program
Professor Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences

Education

  • PhD, Economics, Iowa State University, 2000
  • MSc, Agricultural Economics, University of Reading, Reading, U.K., 1995
Bio

Silvia Secchi is a natural resource economist by training, and her work typically combines methodologies from the social sciences, the natural sciences and engineering. She has published on the environmental impacts of agricultural land use change in the Corn Belt, particularly water quality and carbon, and the interplay between agricultural, conservation and energy policies in the region. She has also researched farmers’ attitudes towards conservation, multifunctional floodplain management and targeted reconnection, invasive species management, and mitigation and adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector. Secchi is a core faculty member in the campus-wide Water Sustainability Initiative. She is also interested in the mentoring and training of graduate students, fostering the creation of new knowledge in interdisciplinary teams, and promoting effective science and policy communication, both internally within teams, and externally when engaging with stakeholders, funders and society at large. 

Research Interests

  • Adaptation and mitigation to climate change
  • Conservation policy
  • Environmental impacts of agriculture
  • Floodplain policy
  • Integrated modeling
  • Land use science
  • Water sustainability