Matthew Mair: Fighting climate change, economically

This piece was written in the fall of 2025 by GRAD 5144 (Communicating Science) student Anugrahaprada Mukundan as part of an assignment to interview a classmate and write a news story about their research.

Economics. The first image to pop up in our minds upon hearing this word is money. We think of expenditures, investments, and inflation. But Matthew Mair, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech, is using economics to address environmental challenges and climate change. 

    Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, Mair has always been passionate about environmental issues and felt that he had to do something about it. His desire to tackle climate change was solidified by an undergraduate research internship focusing on the policy responses to sea level rise in North Carolina. Attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and listening to lectures by economists further crystallized his vision for applying economics and policy making to address climate change. Describing this conference as an eye-opening experience, Mair says he learned about integrated climate assessment models and the economic impacts of climate change, which broadened his perspective on the potential applications for economics. 

    As a graduate student at Virginia Tech, Mair’s research uses surveys to find out how much people value the environment and translates those survey results into information for environmental policymakers. His main research project investigates the willingness of coastal residents to pay for mitigating or controlling the effects of the harmful Red Tide algal bloom in Florida. Another project addresses the detrimental impacts of agricultural nutrient runoff in Eastern North Carolina, using survey data to assess how likely farmers are to adopt conservation practices and policies.

    His research is very interdisciplinary. Mair regularly works with hydrologists, marine biologists, and members of the business and tourism industry to gain a holistic understanding of the impacts of environmental policies. 

    “I really enjoy working with data!” Mair says.  “It’s very exciting when it’s all done and you can run the model, and you get all these little stars of significance.”

    He hopes to pass on his passion for climate change economics by pursuing a career as a professor, fostering the next generation of scholars who are going to change the world. In his economics lingo, Mair adds that he sees his “comparative advantage” as the “ability to teach and disperse knowledge.” 

    “Economics is the language and the lens through which we can study all the world’s problems," says Mair. "That is the mantra I have been taking with me.  If I can study any topic through an economic lens, hopefully people will listen to me.”