Nicholas Brozovic, a leading water economist with significant experience in Nebraska and around the world, has been appointed director of policy for the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska, effective July 1.
Brozović will join Christopher M. U. Neale, director of research, and Chittaranjan Ray, director of the Nebraska Water Center, as a member of the institute’s senior leadership team. He also will serve as associate professor of agricultural economics within the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln..
Brozović is currently an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on using economic analysis to understand spatial, dynamic natural resource systems, with a special emphasis on water resources. He designs and evaluates management policies that can maintain or improve the condition of natural resources. Much of his work is interdisciplinary and involves collaborations with engineers, urban planners and others. He is currently working to establish functioning resource markets, such as groundwater markets, that can be used as both research and teaching platforms and as models of sustainability for industry.
“I am delighted that we have been able to attract Dr. Brozović to the University of Nebraska,” said Roberto Lenton, founding executive director of the Water for Food Institute. “His experience in policy-relevant research in Nebraska and elsewhere around the world, together with his deep knowledge of groundwater management, will be enormously helpful in advancing the policy work of the Water for Food Institute and in ensuring that the results of scientific and policy research effectively inform policy and policymakers.”
Ronnie D. Green, vice president of agriculture and natural resources at the University of Nebraska and Harlan vice chancellor of IANR, said: “We are enormously pleased that Dr. Brozović is coming on board in the Daugherty Water for Food Institute and as a UNL faculty member in agricultural economics and water policy. I have been impressed by his path-breaking work on groundwater trading in the Republican and Platte River basins in Nebraska, and I know that my colleagues on the IANR faculty are looking forward to working further with him on these and other issues when he joins the university soon.”
Brozović has a bachelor’s degree in geology from Oxford University, a master’s degree in geology from the University of Southern California, and a master’s degree and doctorate in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California-Berkeley.
The Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute was founded in 2010 to address the global challenge of achieving food security with less pressure on water resources through improved management of water in agricultural and food systems. It is committed to ensuring a water and food secure world without compromising the use of water for other human and environmental needs.