Professor 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; the impact of green industrial policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act; and the governance of electricity markets by Public Utility Commissions. 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.
Dr. Gamper-Rabindran holds secondary appointments in the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Department of Economics. She serves as editor of Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, book review editor of the Journal of Public Policy and Management, and sits on advisory boards and councils for the University of Pittsburgh Press, the Ohio River Valley Institute, and Solar United Neighbors Pennsylvania. Her research has been supported by grants from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.
Courses Taught
- PIA 2510 - Political Economy of Development
- PIA 2502 - Political Economy of Global Environment
- PIA 2522 - Political Economy of Global Energy
- PIA 2553 - Political Economy of Global Health
- Current Issues in Sustainability
- Ph.D. Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
- M. Sc. Environmental Management, Oxford, 1999
- B.A. Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1996
- B.A. Economics and Environmental Science & Public Policy, Harvard 1994
Education & Training
- America’s Energy Gamble: People Economy and Planet Cambridge University Press 2022
- The Shale Dilemma: A Global Perspective on Fracking and Shale Development, editor and contributor, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.
- S. Gamper-Rabindran. Fracked communities and taxpayers: shale economics in the United States and Argentina. Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics, 2021
- Shifting away from coal power: prioritizing ratepayers and communities vs. shareholders? Pace Environmental Law Review 2022
- Environment
- Energy
- Health and development economics policy
- Applied economics
- Program evaluation and geographical information systems
