Tim Searchinger

Timothy D. Searchinger is a Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University's Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment. He is also a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. Although trained as a lawyer, his work today combines ecology, agronomy, and economics to analyze the challenge of how to feed a growing world population while reducing the environmental consequences of agriculture, particularly land use change, greenhouse gas emissions, and nitrogen pollution. Searchinger was the the lead author of publicatins in Science in 2008, 2009, and 2015 of papers offering the first calculations of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with land use change due to biofuels and potential effects on food consumption, and describing a broader error for bioenergy generally in the accounting rules for the Kyoto Protocol and many national laws. Searchinger is the lead author of a series of reports for the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, and others on how to meet global feed needs in 2050 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions titled Creating a Sustainable Food Future. He has projects in Rwanda, Colombia, Thailand, and Vietnam on evaluating potential for livestock or crop improvements to reduce emissions and protect forests. Searchinger has also been a Senior Fellow of the Law and Environmental Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, a consultant to the World Bank on Climate Smart Agriculture, a fellow at the Smith School at Oxford University, a Deputy General Counsel to Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania and a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School where he was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal.