Stephan Thies

Stephan Thies

PhD Student

Stephan Thies

Sustainable Development


Personal Details

Stephan is a fourth-year student in Columbia’s Sustainable Development PhD program. His research interests lie at the intersection of environmental and quantitative urban economics. In his ongoing projects, he explores how transportation policies and infrastructure investments impact welfare and can help mitigate climate change through mode choice, emissions, and land use.



Stephan holds a BSc in Economics from Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), an MSc in Statistics from Imperial College London (UK), and an MA in International Trade, Finance, and Development from Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Spain). Prior to joining Columbia’s PhD program, he worked as a research assistant at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and as a consultant for the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery.