Keith Evans graduated this summer from the Department of Economics with a PhD in economics. He has since moved with his wife and two children to Canton, New York, where he has accepted a teaching and research position at St. Lawrence University.

Tell us about your new position. St. Lawrence is a liberal arts college in upstate New York, and the campus and surrounding area are gorgeous. I've accepted a tenure-track position where my primary responsibility will be teaching, but also continuing on with the research I started in my dissertation. I’ll also have the opportunity to collaborate on some new research with faculty in environmental studies at St. Lawrence, along with another environmental economist at a neighboring university.

What do you look forward to in your new position? I'm really looking forward to meeting the students. During my interview I was asked to teach a class, and was surprised and excited by how engaged the students were. I enjoy teaching economics. Students look at the subject with fresh eyes. Their ideas are often very insightful.

Tell us about the pre-doctoral work you did at Arizona State University this past spring. From January through May of 2011, I did a pre-doctoral fellowship at The Center for Environmental Economics and Sustainable Policy at Arizona State University. I worked with three professors there on specific research that was part of my dissertation. There were five students (all environmental economists) in the program from the US and Britain. It was a unique opportunity to work with other graduate students who had their own methods, insights, and perspectives in the field.

What's something important that you gained from ISU? I had three major professors and learned valuable lessons from each. I learned that the story is just as much an important part of your research as the results, and that research cannot be for your own interest but should be a contribution to the field.