Meet the Team

Edward B. Barbier is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics, Colorado State University and a Senior Scholar in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. His main expertise is environmental and resource economics as well as international environmental policy. He has consulted for a variety of national, international and non-governmental agencies, including many UN organizations, the World Bank and the OECD. He has authored over 350 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, written or edited 27 books, and published in popular journals and social media. Barbier is a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and is a highly cited scholar on global environmental and sustainability issues. His latest book is the award-winning Economics for a Fragile Planet, Cambridge University Press.

Joanne Burgess Barbier is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Colorado State University, where she is also affiliated with the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. Dr Burgess is an environmental and natural resource economist with special interests in forest land use, wildlife management, trade and environment, and sustainability. She has been a consultant and policy analyst for various national, international, and non-governmental agencies, including UN organizations, the World Bank, and the OECD. She has authored over 45 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters, written 5 books, and published in popular journals. Dr Burgess has over 6,900 citations to her work. The textbook, Economics for a Sustainable World: Introduction to Natural Resource and Environmental Economics by E.B. Barbier and J.C. Burgess, 2025, is written for undergraduate students with little or no exposure to economics. This introductory textbook offers a new perspective on environmental economics for the 21st century. Previously published is the book Economics of the SDGs: Putting the Sustainable Development Goals into Practice, by E.B. Barbier and J.C. Burgess. 2021 Palgrave Macmillan, London and New York.

Research on recreation demand using mobile device data
Snow, skiing, and regional economic spillovers

Sonali Diddi ‘s research focuses on Sustainable Clothing Production and Consumption. Her research-based, interdisciplinary and systems thinking-informed approach to addressing sustainability-related issues and problems in textiles and apparel industry recognizes the ever-changing dimensions of the discipline and an increasingly diverse and challenged society and global economy. Sonali constantly seeks out ways to engage with the local community to gain a sense of the broader relevance of her research in society. She is currently working to develop Colorado Fiber Systems Collaborative to map Colorado’s fiber related producers and businesses. She was an expert consultant for BBC Radio (UK), New York Academy of Sciences and invited international speaker for numerous events to share her research.

Dr. Gregory Graff’s research at CSU looks at the economics and public policy of technological innovation and entrepreneurship in the agricultural and food industries. His work analyzes the interrelationships among intellectual property rights, technology transfer, startups, venture capital, and other aspects of the innovation ecosystem. His regional economics work focuses on the formation and impact of regional high tech clusters on economic growth. Dr. Graff publishes in the economics literature as well as in leading scientific journals such as Science and Nature Biotechnology. At CSU, he teaches courses on the global agricultural and food system, agricultural policy, entrepreneurship, and the economics of technological change in agricultural production. Dr. Graff did his bachelors in Biological Sciences at Cornell University in 1992, his master’s at Ohio State University in 1995, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics at University of California at Berkeley in 2002. Dr. Graff and his family own and operate Laughing Buck Farm on the outskirts of Fort Collins, Colorado.

CEJ’s approach is one of “next-level readiness”. We emphasize strategies to address environmental inequalities that are informed by community knowledge, interdisciplinary collaboration, and our focus on social justice outcomes. Each of our teaching, research, and engagement initiatives aims to advance environmental justice (EJ) capacity so that CSU and the communities we serve are ready to:

Pursue impactful funding
Develop transformative solutions
Coordinate with partners and networks to build lasting trust
Conserve and protect the systems and biodiversity that sustains us

Dana Hoag is a native of Colorado and earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees at CSU. He has been a professor at CSU for about 30 years, where he is active in teaching, research and extension. Dr. Hoag specializes in issues where agriculture and the environment intersect. He provides analyses that offer information about how to reduce conflicts through management or policy. His focus is on water, soil and wildlife. He has published about 150 refereed journal articles and over 250 Extension publications. He teaches policy, ecosystem services in agriculture and environmental economics. He developed a book with website support on agricultural risk and computer decision aids for disease management in peaches, soil conservation, fertilizer use, farm and water contamination tradeoffs from pesticides, and nutrient trading. Dr. Hoag has served as an expert to the US Congress and for litigation in the Supreme Court involving water use conflicts between states. Many of his studies have required regional studies, such as how conservation easements affect sense of place, how irrigation restrictions might effect county economies, returns from CSU research, and the impact of wildlife refuges on local economies.

Dr. Alexis R. Kennedy is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration at CSU. Her research focuses on public management topics including the interactions between public, private, and nonprofit organizations in the pursuit of public outcomes, community engaged research, and social equity. Her articles have appeared in Administration and Society, Review of Public Personnel Administration, and Journal of International Development. Kennedy also runs Public Service Partnerships, LLC, in which she has consulted for UWLC and NoCoWorks on projects that support decreasing barriers around childcare, housing, and transportation in Northern Colorado. Kennedy serves on the Board of Directors for the United Way of Larimer County in which she chairs the Community Impact Committee. She has previously worked as a practitioner in the energy industry in New Jersey and as a public finance consultant for nonprofit and public entities in Colorado.

My major project over the last 3 years has been development and validation of the Civic Capacity Index, which measures inclusive governance and predicts community resilience, social capital, and public health indicators (e.g., suicide rates, poverty, and poor health). Currently, I am involved in 12 other projects in Colorado and Arizona, most of them collaborations with CSU Extension and all of them involving aspects of prevention science: community readiness; needs assessments (in particular); program planning, selection and implementation of evidence-based programs, and evaluation. These activities also inform the six graduate courses I teach as well as the community workshops that my Prevention Research Center colleagues and I deliver.

Dr. Mooney is an Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University (CSU). He holds research, teaching, extension, and service appointments with an emphasis on agricultural production systems, food and agricultural value chains, and business management. His current research and outreach projects include topics related to crop and livestock production management, water and soil resource sustainability, technology adoption and impact evaluation, and farm financial management. He currently teaches Agricultural and Resource Enterprise Analysis (AREC 305) for undergraduates and Agricultural Production and Cost Analysis (AREC 605) for graduates. Prior to joining CSU, Dr. Mooney earned degrees from the University of Wisconsin (Ph.D., B.S.) and Michigan State University (M.S.). He also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama and has lived or worked in several other locations, including Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Tennessee.

Susan M. Opp, PhD, is currently a Full Professor of Public Policy and Administration and Director of the Master of Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is also a Fulbright Scholar to Mauritius for 2021-2022 where she is studying economic development and sustainability on the island nation. Dr. Opp is a community engaged scholar that focuses on questions of local sustainability, economic development, and urban affairs in her research, teaching, and community service activities. Since receiving her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Louisville, Dr. Opp has served as the director of a NASPAA accredited MPA program, founder and director of the Masters in Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) graduate program, graduate programs coordinator for the MA and PhD in political science, internship director, and a variety of other public service related work. Her research has appeared in a number of academic and professional outlets including Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Urban Affairs, Economic Development Quarterly, and Local Environment, to name a few. She is also the author or editor of five books- including one printed as part of the ASPA series on public administration and policy in (2013). She had the distinct pleasure of being one of the inaugural APSA “Pracademic Fellows” at the Environmental Protection Agency working in the Office of Policy in 2016- thanks, in large part, to the efforts of Dr. Beryl Radin.

Phyllis Resnick is the Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Colorado Futures Center at Colorado State University. The Colorado Futures Center is a CSU affiliated 501c3 organization dedicated to informing about economic, fiscal and public policy issues impacting community economic health and quality of life. Phyllis leads the center’s work on macro/fiscal forecasting, the fiscal sustainability of state and local government, and the impacts of tax and expenditure limitations. She also supports the center’s expanded research portfolio focusing on all aspects of family economic security and community economic health.

Internationally, as a consultant and volunteer, Phyllis works in Southern and East Africa, the MENA countries and central Asia in the areas of fiscal forecasting, budget transparency/open budgets, and citizen involvement in the budget process. For her work in Africa, Phyllis was awarded 2015 Volunteer of the Year from the Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance. Her MA and PhD are from the University of Colorado.

Alternative email contact: Phyllis.resnick@colostate.edu

Dr. Michael Seman is an assistant professor of arts management at Colorado State University. Michael’s work examines issues in the creative economy and focuses on how music ecosystems and regional growth intersect. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, CNN, and regional media outlets often seek Michael’s perspective and insights. His work is published in various academic journals, edited volumes, CityLab, and most recently by the Brookings Institution; he has also co-authored music strategies and creative economy reports for the City of Denver and the State of Colorado. Michael is currently writing a book about music venues and cities for the University of Texas Press. He previously managed daytime programming for two music festivals in Denton, Texas and spent several years as an internal marketing executive at Creative Artists Agency in Beverly Hills, California. He is represented by the Creative Class Group for speaking engagements.

Zachary Schaller is an applied microeconomist specializing in industrial relations, regional economic development, construction IO, and economic history. He is especially interested in labor market institutions, with current research focused on the geography of union organizing and how deunionization in the US has affected local labor markets.

Patti Schmitt is the Community Development Director for the Office of Engagement and Extension at Colorado State University. In this role, she works closely with Colorado communities to address complex social, health, economic and safety challenges. Additionally, she is the Director of a unique leadership program called the Family Leadership Training Institute (FLTI) of Colorado at CSU Extension. FLTI is a community-based leadership program that utilizes an evidence-based curriculum to build community member capacity to be leaders in addressing local challenges in collaboration with content experts and decision makers. The mission of the FLTI Collaborative is to bridge the gap between decision makers and community members so that communities can better learn, plan and act together and targets community members who are often left out of community decision making process.

Andrew (Andy) Seidl, Ph.D. has been a CSU professor of environmental and development economics since before the invention of wifi, has taught courses and/or lived in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, England, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Vietnam, and has travelled to about 80 countries. His work focuses on natural resource-based economic development and private (agricultural) lands conservation in Colorado and biodiversity finance and World Heritage tourism internationally.

Andy has worked with the Brazilian government in the Pantanal, International Union for Conservation of Nature, United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, Food and Agricultural Organization, and United Nations Development Program. He can hack his way through Spanish and Portuguese and can read French but really can only tell the best dad jokes in English. He enjoys losing at golf, soccer, and a good local IPA.

A significant part of my current work focuses on the impacts of transitions, including energy transitions, on workers and communities and on strategies to make these transitions more socially and ecologically just and effective. To that end I am working on two projects. The first is a collaboration of the Center for Environmental Justice and Political Science at CSU, the Just Energy Transition Center at Arizona State University, the Economic and Workforce Development Office at Marshall University, WV, and the Just Transition Fund. This Just Transition Academy Exchange will train graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the management of energy transitions, starting with coal transitions in Colorado, Arizona and West Virginia. In the short term it will involve an online course and an internship with community organizations and under resourced governments. In the medium term it will result in a certificate.

The second project examines the workforce and community impacts of the lithium lifecycle in the USA and is funded by the Sloan Foundation. We are focusing on four sites – from extraction to manufacturing. This builds expertise on the critical minerals and metals front, a topic of increasing national and regional significance.

Dr. Wade Troxell is an associate professor of mechanical engineering with affiliations with systems engineering, biomedical engineering, the Nancy Richardson Design Center, the Center for Ethics and Human Rights, and the master’s program in Public Policy Administration.  His research interests are AI -incorporated design and intelligent robotic systems.  His teaching interest are in AI and Design, design as exploration, and capstone design.  He is a Fellow and lifetime member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society.  He was a NATO Post-Doctoral Fellow in the department of artificial intelligence at Edinburgh University, Scotland.

Dr. Troxell established NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) in Colorado and Wyoming and served as the Executive Director for five years. He was the founding director of the CSU Manufacturing Excellence Center. He served as Walter Scott College of Engineering associate dean for research and economic development for ten years. During this time, he helped to form the Systems Engineering department and the Biomedical Engineering program.

Dr. Anders Van Sandt  received his Ph.D. in 2018 from Colorado State University in Agricultural and Resource Economics and worked for two years as a postdoctoral scholar at Texas A&M. His current Extension and research efforts revolve around promoting rural economic development by exploring rural-urban linkages, entrepreneurship, access to healthcare, and interdependencies between local industries. Though an early career member, Dr. Van Sandt has been awarded a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant and has published numerous academic and Extension articles in outlets such as Health Economics, Tourism Economics, and the Journal of Regional Science, among others.