Michail Fragkias, PhD, is an applied economist and interdisciplinary social scientist working broadly on issues of urbanization, land use and the environment. He is currently a professor in the Department of Economics at Boise State University‘s College of Business and Economics. He is also the Director of the Business Research and Economic Development Center at the College. He researches issues of urban and regional economic development, land use change, urban spatial structure dynamics and the environment.

He has served as a lead author in large scientific assessment reports including the UN-CBD Cities and Biodiversity Outlook and the 3rd National Climate Assessment of the US Global Change Research Program. He is also a Contributing Author for the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC. Between November of 2006 and August of 2012, he served as the Executive Officer of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) – an IHDP Core Project, hosted by the Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University. From September 2003 to September 2006, he was a Postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy (CESP), then housed at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. CESP is now part of the university’s Woods Institute for the Environment. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Clark University.