Carolyn Kousky | Island Press Author

Carolyn Kousky

Carolyn Kousky is Associate Vice President for Economics and Policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. Prior to joining EDF, she was the Executive Director at the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where she founded and directed the Policy Incubator. Dr. Kousky’s research examines multiple aspects of disaster insurance markets, disaster finance, climate risk management, and policy approaches for increasing resilience. She has published numerous articles, reports, and book chapters on the economics and policy of climate risk and disaster insurance markets, and is routinely cited in media outlets including NPR, The New York Times, and The Financial Times, among many others. She is the recipient of the 2013 Tartufari International Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. She is the vice-chair of the California Climate Insurance Working Group, a university fellow at Resources for the Future, a non-resident scholar at the Insurance Information Institute, and a member of the Roundtable on Risk and Resilience of Extreme Events at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She has a BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University and a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

Ian Was a Warning to Make Flood Insurance Accessible to All

Understanding Disaster Insurance author Carolyn Kousky writes that by expanding access to flood insurance, we can protect more Americans and improve their financial resilience in the face of escalating climate disasters.