Welcome! I am an interdisciplinary environmental scholar at the Precourt Institute for Energy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, where I lead the development of the China Energy Program. My research explores the intersections of political science, public policy, environmental sciences, and engineering. The focal point of my work is investigating how incentives, institutions, and information shape climate and environmental actions at both governmental and group levels. Employing political economy and public policy frameworks, I study both policy-making and implementation.
My first book, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China (Cambridge University Press, 2022), has been recognized with three major association awards for public policy research. These include the 2023 International Public Policy Association Early Career Research Award, the 2020 American Political Science Association Harold D. Lasswell Award, and the 2019 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Ph.D. Dissertation Award. Additionally, it received the 2017 American Political Science Association Paul A. Sabatier Award and the 2018 Southern Political Science Association Malcolm Jewell Award. My second book, Compliance with Policy, is under contract at the Elements Series of Cambridge University Press.
I am working on several new projects focused on air pollution management and the politics of climate mitigation and adaptation, not only in China but in other Global South contexts.
I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Swarthmore College and was the first to receive an MS in civil and environmental engineering and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.
I can be reached via email and found on Twitter Follow @svictoriashen.
Recent Updates
06/2023: Receives the Early Career Research Award from the International Public Policy Association, given biennially to “a scholar who, within seven years of completing the PhD, has a record of single-authored publications that represents a major theoretical, methodological, and/or empirical contribution to the field of Public Policy and/or Public Administration.” View the official announcement and citation.
Older Updates10/2022: Paperback version, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China, is published by Cambridge University Press. Watch the recorded livestream of book presentation and discussion here.
04/2022: Op-ed, “Next steps in US-China climate cooperation,” is published in The Hill.
03/2022: Book, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China, is published by Cambridge University Press.
12/2021: Report, “Accelerating Decarbonization in China and the United States and Promoting Bilateral Collaboration on Climate Change,” is published by Stanford University Precourt Institute for Energy. View press release.
11/2021: Editor-invited journal article, “Deregulation Is Not the Enemy: It Can Be Good for the Economy—and the Environment Too,” is published in the Breakthrough Journal (commissioned by the Breakthrough Institute).
11/2021: Op-ed, “How to process China’s underwhelming climate pledge,” is published in The Hill.
10/2021: Blog post, “Local Actions Central to Achieving Carbon-Neutrality Goal in China,” is published as part of the “Glasgow and Beyond: Organizational Response to Climate Change” Online Symposium in Cambridge University Press FifteenEightyFour.
10/2021: Op-ed, “How political science can advance climate models,” is published in The Hill.
09/2021: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Integrating Political Science into Climate Modeling: An Example of Internalizing the Costs of Climate-Induced Violence in the Optimal Management of the Climate,” is published in Sustainability.
09/2020: Ph.D. dissertation, The Political Pollution Cycle: An Inconvenient Truth and How to Break It, receives the Harold D. Lasswell Award from the American Political Science Association for “the best doctoral dissertation in the field of public policy in the past two calendar years.” View the official announcement and award citation.
05/2020: Peer-reviewed journal article, “Environmental Justice in India: Incidence of Air Pollution from Coal-Fired Power Plants,” is published in Ecological Economics.