Thomas Braun

Thomas is a fifth-year student of Columbia’s PhD program in Sustainable Development. At the intersection of natural and social sciences, his research in environmental economics leverages applied econometrics and statistics to explore the causal impacts of human activities on natural systems. For instance, Thomas is investigating the effect of urban traffic on air pollution or the impact of intensive irrigation on local climate in the US.

After the completion of his Master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Ecole polytechnique, Thomas joined the French public administration via the Corps des mines and worked as a strategy analyst in the steel manufacturing (Luxembourg) and uranium mining (Kazakhstan) industries. Prior to joining Columbia’s PhD program, he also worked for three years at the European Commission’s Directorate General for competition (Belgium) in merger control mainly in industrial sectors.