Sam Heft-Neal is a research fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and in the Department of Earth System Science. Sam is working with Marshall Burke to identify the impacts of extreme climate events on food availability and childhood nutrition in Africa. Specifically, they are examining the impacts of climate induced food shocks on child health measures including child mortality rates. Sam’s previous work examined the non-linear relationship between agricultural productivity and the environment and its effects on human health and the economy. Sam holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in Statistics and Economics from the same institution.