Shanti Gamper Rabindran

Prof. Gamper-Rabindran analyzes the economic, legal, and political barriers and opportunities for the energy transition to renewable energy and for economic diversification of fossil fuel-reliant communities in the United States and globally. Her book America’s Energy Gamble details how political, financial, and legal institutions entrench fossil fuel dependency, but how efforts to shift to cost-competitive renewable energy have gained traction. Her edited volume The Shale Dilemma: A Global Perspective on Fracking and Shale Development details how countries diverged in their decision to pursue or eschew shale extraction and the impacts of shale extraction on local communities. Current work examines the energy transition in Appalachia and globally. Her papers have also examined risk management in the chemical sector including corporate social responsibility programs, the economic benefits from remediating hazardous waste sites, public health benefits from the provision of piped water in Brazil, and the environmental impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

She helped launched the Masters-level program in Energy and the Environment at GSPIA and the university-wide certificates in Global Health. She teaches courses in Economics of Development, Global Energy, Global Environment, Global Health, and Global Economy. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT; she completed an M.Sc. in Environmental Management and a B.A. in Jurisprudence at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. She also holds an B.A. in Economics and in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard.