Home > Academics > Degree Programs > PhD in Sustainable Development > Student Profiles
PhD in Sustainable Development Student Profiles
Marta Vicarelli
Marta Vicarelli is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sustainable Development program and is a research assistant at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University. Since 2004, she has been a research fellow at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Her principal field of research is climate change and natural catastrophes risk management and financing. Her current research interests focus on, the balance between the public and the private sector (e.g. insurance, re-insurance) in risk sharing and cost sharing for different risk reducing measures; possible partnerships between international organizations (such as, OECD, UN, World Bank, and UNDP), governments and the private sector; impacts of public policies on insurance (and re-insurance) decision making and market behavior; and the potential role that insurance can play in encouraging mitigation for actions that reduce the impacts of climate change.
She is currently working as a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group II, investigating observed changes and responses in natural and managed systems and sectors.
Thanks to a fellowship offered by the French Ministry of Education, Marta spent three years in France where she received a B.S. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and a Master’s of Environmental Economics from École Polytechnique. She then moved to New York where she completed a Master of International Affairs at SIPA, Columbia University.