Dean
Elena Irwin is an environmental economist and sustainability leader who serves as Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research addresses the sustainability of agricultural and urbanizing areas at local and regional scales. She focuses on using integrated models of land, water, and ecosystem services to assess sustainable development policies and pathways.
Elena is a strong advocate for translating environmental science, management, and sustainability scholarship into practice. She served as an appointed member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Scientific Advisory Board from 2021 to 2024 and is currently president-elect of the National Sustainability Society, a member-based organization that brings together sustainability professionals from academia, business, government, and non-profit sectors. She is a fellow of both the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
Before joining UCSB, Elena was the Director of the Sustainability Institute and a Distinguished University Professor at The Ohio State University, with a faculty appointment in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics. She co-founded and launched the university-wide Sustainability Institute in 2019 and led interdisciplinary efforts that brought together faculty, researchers, and instructors from across the natural, physical, and social sciences as well as public health, engineering, business, planning, policy, law, and the humanities. Under her leadership, the institute launched multiple sustainability education programs and supported interdisciplinary research teams in securing more than $90 million in external funding. Prior to this, Elena developed and launched Ohio State’s first undergraduate sustainability major.
Elena is guided by the belief that solving today’s environmental problems requires bridging rigorous science with real-world partnerships and action — a philosophy she brings to her leadership at the Bren School.
Elena earned her undergraduate degree in history and German from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from University of Maryland.