Rodrigo Pizarro

Rodrigo Pizarro is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Santiago, Chile. During his postdoctoral scholarship at Stanford, he conducted research on the Yaqui Valley for FSE. Prior to the fellowship he was a PhD student ('12) at Stanford's Emmett Interdisciplinary Program for Environment and Resources where he studied the global diffusion of conservation policy, and did his undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Rodrigo has worked in the Public Sector and in the Non Government Sector, always involved in environmental issues. He was adviser to the Minister of Economy and Public Works on environmental issues. More recently he directed an important sustainable development NGO in Chile, Fundacion Terram, before coming to Stanford.

At Terram, Rodrigo led an interdisciplinary team that won the World Bank's 2005 Sustainable Livelihood Prize for a project on sustainable aquaculture. This project, on bioremediation in Chilean salmon farms, has been nominated for the 2007 Intel Environment Innovation Award by the Tech Museum. He has also carried out diverse projects and consultancies. For instance he acted as head economist in a three year environmental accounts Project for Panama, financed by the Interamerican Development Bank, finally heading the project, which included an economic valuation of a natural reserve. He has also been an environment and resource economics professor in various Chilean Universities.

As a well known NGO directive, Rodrigo has been directly involved in environmental policy in his country where he was appointed Member of the "Consejo Consultivo Comisión Nacional de Medio Ambiente" the Advisory Body of the regional environmental commission, for the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, from 2001 to 2003. He was also a member of the Commission on Education for Sustainable Development, organized by Conama, the Chilean Environmental Agency. He was invited to participate in the review of the atmospheric decontamination plan of the metropolitan area of Santiago and was also formally consulted on the passing of a new law to create the office of Environmental Minister in Chile in 2006 and regularly testified as expert witness in Congressional Committees on environmental and natural resource policy.

Rodrigo is broadly interested in the political economy of environmental policy in developing countries, more specifically how institutions determine environmental outcomes. Rodrigo is married and the proud father of three daughters.