Carolyn Kousky

Carolyn Kousky is Executive Director at the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also directs the Policy Incubator. Dr. Kousky’s research examines multiple aspects of disaster insurance markets, disaster finance, climate risk management, and policy approaches for increasing resilience. She has published numerous articles, reports, and book chapters on the economics and policy of climate risk and disaster insurance markets, and is routinely cited in media outlets including NPR, The New York Times, and The Financial Times, among many others. She is the recipient of the 2013 Tartufari International Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. She is the vice-chair of the California Climate Insurance Working Group, a university fellow at Resources for the Future, a non-resident scholar at the Insurance Information Institute, and a member of the Roundtable on Risk and Resilience of Extreme Events at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She has a BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University and a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Research

Carolyn oversees policy-related research and policy engagement at the Wharton Risk Center. She directs the Center’s Policy Incubator initiative. The Policy Incubator will draw on lessons from business incubators to help move innovative and visionary ideas to implementable policy through rigorous analysis, stress-testing, and convening. The Incubator will be a thought leader, bringing together diverse partners and sectors to help improve resilience for households and communities against worsening extreme events.