Xinming Du
Professor Xinming Du is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, National University of Singapore. Dr. Du is also a research affiliate of the Center for Environmental Economics and Policy at Columbia University, where she received her PhD degree in Sustainable Development in 2023. Her research fields are environmental economics, health economics, and applied microeconomics. During her time as a Salata Institute Fellow, Dr. Du will continue work on two projects. The first, “Catalyzing Climate Change: Modifiable Methane Leaks and the Fossil Supply Chain,” aims to reduce human-caused methane emissions by investigating the sources using advanced satellite data and monitoring techniques and effectiveness of methane regulations. Her research focuses on the substitution between gas flaring and venting in the fossil fuel industry and the methane leakage from LNG (liquefied natural gas) tankers during international trade. The second project, “Methane Mitigation from Dry Cultivation of Rice in China,” is a joint work with Harvard faculty. The project focuses on methane emissions from paddy rice in flooded fields and how recent technology adoption mitigates these emissions. As the largest rice producer, China’s recent promotion of dry cultivation aims to conserve water but has significant co-benefits in terms of methane reduction. She will use satellite data on methane and land cover changes, together with administrative data and reduced form techniques, to estimate the impacts of dry cultivation adoption and the return of government subsidies.
The Salata Institute
The Salata Institute supports interdisciplinary research that leads to real-world action, including high-risk/high-reward projects by researchers already working in the climate area and new endeavors that make it easier for Harvard scholars, who have not worked on climate problems, to do so. Faculty interested in the Climate Research Clusters program should note an upcoming deadline for concepts on April 1, 2024.