Timothy Searchinger

Timothy D. Searchinger is a Research Scholar at Princeton University. 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 greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. He is the lead author of a series of reports, including a new synthesis, by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank and UN agencies on how to meet global food needs in 2050 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions titled Creating a Sustainable Food Future https://www.wri.org/our-work/project/world-resources-report/world-resou…. Searchinger was the lead author of two papers in Science in 2008 and 2009 offering the first calculations of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with land use change due to biofuels, and describing a broader error for bioenergy generally in the accounting rules for the Kyoto Protocol and many national laws. A recent paper in Nature proposes a new "Carbon Benefits Index" for evaluating the climate consequences of land use change. He has also directed projects in Rwanda, Zambia, Colombia and Vietnam assessing opportunities to improve livestock production and reduce emissions. Searchinger has also worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, been a consultant to the World Bank, a Senior Fellow of the Law and Environmental Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, 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 is a graduate, summa cum laude, of Amherst College and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School where he was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal.