Rachel M. Young is an Assistant Professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She joined the University of Minnesota after serving as a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar at the Global Policy Lab at Stanford University. 

She received her PhD in Science Technology and Environmental Policy from the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. During her doctoral training, she was an Associate Doctoral Fellow at the Global Policy Lab at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Research Volunteer at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research. She also worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she advised the Biden Administration on issues related to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood mitigation and insurance programs. Rachel holds an MPP from the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley.

She is an environmental economist that uses quantitative methods and big data to examine social impacts of climate change and natural hazards. Her work focuses on the impact of climate change and tropical cyclones on health and migration, and evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation and disaster response policies and programs.