Meet the faculty: Top-tier researchers join Berkeley Haas for 2024-25

A collage shows headshots of a man and a women side-by-side: Kelsey Jack and James Sallee.
Associate Professor Kelsey Jack and Professor James Sallee joined the faculty on July 1.

Two top-tier researchers whose work addresses pressing environmental, development, and public policy questions have joined the ranks of Berkeley Haas professors this semester. Two additional professors will join the faculty in January 2025. 

“Our new faculty hires this year are leading researchers and teachers who will help to solidify our emphasis on sustainability,” says Interim Dean Jenny Chatman. “We’re so thrilled they are bringing their brilliance to Haas—and to the greater UC Berkeley community.”

“Our new faculty hires this year are leading researchers and teachers who will help to solidify our emphasis on sustainability. We’re so thrilled they are bringing their brilliance to Haas—and to the greater UC Berkeley community.” —Interim Dean Jenny Chatman

Associate Professor Kelsey Jack, whose work lies at the intersection of environmental and development economics, comes to Haas from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was an associate professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and the Department of Economics. 

Professor James Sallee is already a familiar face around campus. As a faculty member in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley since 2015 and a faculty affiliate at the Energy Institute at Haas since 2016, his research focuses on energy, the environment, climate, and public economics, with a focus on public policy.

In January, Berkeley Haas will welcome Economist Martin Beraja of MIT will join the Economic Analysis and Policy group as an assistant professor, and Dr. David Chan, a health economist and MD now at Stanford University, will join the Economic Analysis and Policy group as a professor. Chan will serve as the new faculty director for the Robinson Life Science, Business, and Entrepreneurship Program.

Associate Professor Kelsey Jack, Sheth Sustainable Business Chancellor’s Chair

Kelsey JackPronouns: she/her
Hometown: Van Zandt, Washington
Academic Group: Business and Public Policy

Education

  • PhD, Public Policy, Harvard University
  • AB, Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Research focus: Environmental and development economics

Introduction: I am joining Haas from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I was an associate professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and the Department of Economics. Prior to that, I was an associate professor at Tufts University. I also spent a year at UC Berkeley in 2013-14 as visiting faculty in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

I study questions at the intersection of environmental and development economics. In particular, I try to understand how low income households use natural resources—land, water, energy—and the ways that policy can help align short-run economic needs with longer-run environmental and health concerns. I’ve thought about this topic for a long time, since a family trip to Madagascar after my freshman year in high school; it’s remained the problem that interests me most in the world. For example, at the moment, I’m studying climate adaptation in Niger and clean energy adoption in Ghana. I have other projects underway in India, South Africa, Malawi and Ivory Coast. 

“I try to understand how low income households use natural resources—land, water, energy—and the ways that policy can help align short-run economic needs with longer-run environmental and health concerns. I’ve thought about this topic for a long time, since a family trip to Madagascar after my freshman year in high school.” —Associate Professor Kelsey Jack

Teaching: I am creating a new course, tentatively titled “Sustainable Markets: Profit, Policy, and Corporate Responsibility”

Why you decided to join Berkeley Haas:  Amazing colleagues! 

Fun (nonacademic) fact about you: I spent two years after college living in Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) working for an environmental organization and figuring out what to do with my life. 

Professor James Sallee

Pronouns: he/him
Hometown: Bloomington, Illinois
Academic Group: Economic Analysis and Policy

Education:

PhD, Economics, University of Michigan 
BA, Economics and Political Science, Macalester College

Research focus: Energy, the environment, climate, and public economics, with a focus on public policy

Introduction: I always knew that I wanted to be an academic, to research, write and teach. So I went more or less straight through to my PhD after college. I fell in love with economics towards the end of college because I saw it as a versatile tool that could be used to study a variety of important problems. In graduate school, I was studying tax policy, partly because it interested me and partly because that was where I found the best mentorship. But, I fell almost by accident into a dissertation topic that studied tax subsidies for hybrid cars. As I learned more about environmental issues, I became more and more interested, and my career has ever since drifted more and more towards the biggest environmental problems of the day. I now study topics ranging from retail electricity pricing reforms in California to the design of public policies to ensure equity in the energy transition. For the last several years, I’ve worked with collaborators in the Rausser College of Natural Resources and at Haas to launch a brand new master’s program called the Master of Climate Solutions, which will be an interdisciplinary professional program that equips students to help become change agents for the climate across industries and sectors.

“As I learned more about environmental issues, I became more and more interested, and my career has ever since drifted more and more towards the biggest environmental problems of the day. I now study topics ranging from retail electricity pricing reforms in California to the design of public policies to ensure equity in the energy transition.” —Professor James Sallee

Class(es) you’ll teach: Core microeconomics

Why you decided to join Berkeley Haas: I have always loved professional education because it feels impactful to help equip students who are going to jump back into leadership roles right after school. I like the back-and-forth with students who bring not just intellectual curiosity, but also a wealth of experience to the classroom dialogue. I like that professional students demand that material is relevant and practical. I was also drawn to the opportunity to push Haas as the leader in climate and sustainability. My research and policy attention has moved more and more towards the climate challenge in recent years, and I believe that business can and must drive progress on climate.

Fun (non-academic) fact about you: I spent most of my money and all of my energy outside of work taking care of my three daughters. I love to travel and enjoy cooking.

Professional Faculty

In addition to the new members of the ladder faculty, nine new lecturers will be teaching courses this fall. Several others will join in spring (with additions exepected mid-year). They include:

  • Helene York, Responsible Business
  • Kate Gordon, Sustainable & Impact Finance
  • Rebekah Butler, Business & Public Policy
  • Alex Luce, Economic Analysis & Policy
  • Ana Martinez, Economic Analysis & Policy
  • Miyoko Schinner, Sustainable & Impact Finance
  • Jules Maltz, Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • Richard Wuebker, Finance
  • Asiff Hijiri, Finance/Entrepreneurship & Innovation
  • queen jaks, Management of Organizations (spring 2025)
  • Bianca Datta, Sustainable & Impact Finance (spring 2025)

Solène Delecourt selected as ‘Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professor’ by Poets&Quants

A smiling woman with short blond wears a yellow blazer and stands with arms crossed. A badge reads: Poets&Quants Best 40 Under 40 Professors
Assistant Professor Solène Delecourt

Assistant Professor Solène Delecourt, who teaches negotiations to MBA students and studies business inequality, has been named as one of Poets&QuantsBest 40 Under 40 MBA Professors” for 2024.

Delecourt was selected from among 1,000 nominations from students, administrators, and faculty members at business schools around the world. The announcement comes just after she was honored with a Cheit Award for Teaching Excellence—the highest teaching honor at Haas—by students in the full-time MBA program.

“This has been a terrific year for me. I am thrilled to be chosen as one of the 40 under 40 MBA professors,” Delecourt says. “I want to thank my students wholeheartedly for their nominations.”

Just four years into her academic career, Delecourt is described by her students as a professor who changed their outlook on negotiations for life—a critical skill in our polarized times

Solène’s strongest message throughout my negotiations course was to create a win/win outcome, and assume we are all on the same side,” said Namit Singal, MBA 24, in his nomination. “I absolutely loved this learning and will take it away for life.”

Alex Berry, MBA 24, said he was going to switch out of an 8 am class section until he met her. “She brought an energy, vulnerability, and practicality to her classes that should be a model for every MBA professor.”

Besides her expertise and creative teaching methods, students also praised her sense of humor, positivity, and “infectious energy.” She earned a perfect score on her teaching evaluations—7 out of 7—last fall.

‘In love’ with teaching

In describing her path to becoming a business school professor, Delecourt says she accidentally “fell under the spell of this career path” after starting her PhD at Stanford, and “I am in love with it.” Her goal is for her students to learn while having fun.

“If they don’t have fun, I don’t think they’re going to remember much. At the same time, they need to learn because this is a class, it’s not a party,” she says. “And so for that, I design all of my classes to be packed with action.”

Some of those class activities include an improv-inspired negotiations tournament, and an open mic session where students share stories of a prior experience where negotiation skills could have helped them. She has a curated playlist—Beyoncé is a favorite—with lyrics that reinforce key learnings.

Delecourt also draws from her research passion to make students aware of power inequities, particularly for women and people of color. Her academic work has been gaining increasing recognition: A co-authored paper published in the journal Nature this year showed that googling for images rather than text amplifies gender biases. It received widespread media attention and won the Best Paper Prize at the 2022 International Conference on Computational Social Science, and was a semi-finalist at the 2021 Wharton People Analytics Competition.

Most of her research is at the intersection of entrepreneurship and gender. She recently ran a field experiment to test whether access to generative AI can boost success for small business owners in Kenya—and found it only helps people who were already high-performers. The paper won the 2024 white paper competition at the Wharton People Analytics Conference. Delecourt’s work has received funding from various sources, including a $250,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation this year. She currently serves as an editorial board member of the journalOrganization Science.

12th year of “Best 40 Under 40”

This is the 12th year that Poets & Quants has published the “Best 40 Under 40” list with the goal of “identifying and celebrating the most talented young professors currently teaching in MBA programs around the world.” The publication’s staff evaluated each nominee on teaching (weighted 70%) and research (weighted 30%).

Read the full article for more details.