Dr. Kevin Berry is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He had a joint appointment in the Institute of Social and Economic Research from 2017-2020. Before joining UAA in January 2017 Dr. Berry was a postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Kevin is a member of the Beijer Young Scholars, a fellowship at the Beijer Institute at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He received his Phd from the University of Wyoming in 2015.
Dr. Berry is an author of 11 peer-reviewed scientific publications, including 7 focused on the risk of pandemic infectious disease. While at UAA Dr. Berry has been a principal researcher on projects totaling more than $3 million, frequently as the sole economist on the project. He is currently overseeing a suite of projects focused on Alaskan fisheries and climate change, emerging infectious disease, and climate change in rural Alaska.
As a part of his service to Alaska Dr. Berry participated in the State of Alaska and Municipality of Anchorage responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including modelling the outbreak and performing analysis and outreach on the costs and benefits of policies to fight the pandemic. He recently testified at a joint meeting of the House State Affairs and Health & Social Services committees and has made frequent media appearances to discuss the pandemic.
Dr. Berry has also given 29 invited seminars and conference presentations including at the University of Nebraska, University of Tennessee, the University of Illinois, Arizona State University, The World Bank, Yale University, and the University of Cambridge. Dr. Berry is a member of the American Economic Association, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and Western Economic Association International, and is a review editor at the peer-reviewed journal EcoHealth. He teaches a course on pandemic economics at UAA, and his children are 4th generation Alaskans. Kevin is an avid cyclist, hiker, and skier.