Amir Jina

Amir Jina is an Assistant Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Amir’s research focuses on measuring the impacts of weather and climate change on low-income communities and trying to understand how they can best adapt to those impacts. This research combines economics with methods from climate science and remote sensing to understand the impacts of climate in both rich and poor countries, and has involved fieldwork on climate adaptation with communities in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Uganda.

Amir is the chair of the AIM for Scale technical panel on weather and climate services, which has generated commitments of more than $1 billion for strategic investments in improved forecast dissemination for climate-informed agricultural decision-making for farmers in low-income countries. As a founding member of the Climate Impact Lab, Amir collaborates on interdisciplinary research that rigorously quantifies the global socioeconomic consequences of climate change.

Amir co-directs the Human-Centered Weather Forecasts initiative, which aims to improve the usability and impact of weather forecasts by tailoring them to the needs and decision-making processes of vulnerable communities, thereby enhancing resilience and reducing the economic risks associated with extreme weather events.

Amir earned a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development and M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University, holds B.A.s in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from Trinity College, Dublin, and previously worked with the Red Cross/Red Crescent in South Asia.