Kathy Baylis

Kathy Baylis is a Professor in the department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research empirically evaluates the effect of climate shocks and policies and their effect on agricultural and environmental outcomes in developing countries. Her current funded projects include large grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation, USAID, USDA and the Environmental Defense Fund focusing on climate resilient food systems, land-based climate policy and food security.  She has published over 80 journal articles and book chapters on agriculture and conservation policy that have appeared in the top field journals in agricultural, environmental, development and regional economics.  She has also coauthored a textbook on U.S. and Canadian agricultural policy, which is used in universities on both sides of the border.

She earned her PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003, where she specialized in international agricultural policy and trade. She joined UCSB in 2020 after over a decade in the department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics as at the University of Illinois where she remains adjunct faculty.