Biography

Jesse Burkhardt is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University, where he specializes in environmental and energy economics. Dr. Burkhardt received a Bachelor of Music (jazz performance) from Portland State University in 2003 and played music semi-professionally in Portland for approximately 1-2 years. He then moved to Yosemite National Park and worked as a back-country ranger for 4 seasons. During the off seasons, he took classes in math, economics, biology, ecology, and political science and interned for his senator in Oregon and the Wilderness Society in Washington DC. In 2006, Dr. Burkhardt went to France and worked on a goat farm making goat cheese. From there, he went to New Haven, CT and earned a Masters of Environmental Management and ultimately a PhD in Environmental and Resource Economics from Yale University in 2016.