Matthew Burgess

Matthew Burgess is an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program, a faculty affiliate in Economics, a fellow at the Cooperative Institute in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), where he directs the Center for Social and Environmental Futures. His research interests are economic growth futures and their environmental impacts, natural resource management and conservation, mathematical modeling of human-environment systems, and political polarization of environmental issues. Burgess has worked extensively on promoting intellectual diversity and dialog on campus, including organizing the CU Reducing Polarization Dialog series, co-chairing CU Boulder's Heterodox Academy Campus Community, serving as a CU Boulder Faculty Fellow for Higher Education and Democracy, and developing a course (ENVS 3555) that centers these ideals in an environmental context. He received a 2020 Heterodox Academy Open Inquiry Award for teaching. Burgess has a BSc from the University of Toronto and a PhD from the University of Minnesota. As a faculty fellow, Burgess hosts the Free Mind podcast and programs around reducing polarization of climate change and environmental issues.