Bio

Dr. Ritwick Ghosh studies and teaches environmental governance. In particular, Dr. Ghosh examines the politics, ethics, and practices of using market institutions to address environmental problems on land, such as biodiversity decline, nutrient pollution, and climate change. His work is primarily qualitative and case study based and centered on the role of power and knowledge in shaping environmental policy innovations. Theoretically, Dr. Ghosh contributes to literature in the fields of science and technology studies, human geography, ecological economics, and public administration. He has an international research program, with projects in the US, Europe, India, and South East Asia.

Before joining NC State, Ritwick had a career in economic consulting in Singapore and later with the UNEP initiative The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in New Delhi. Dr. Ghosh has held faculty positions at New York University and the University of Denver and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the New Carbon Economy Consortium at Arizona State University.

Research Interests

Environmental Policy and Institutions, Conservation Policy, Payments for Ecosystem Services, Carbon and Biodiversity Offsetting, Nature-based solutions

Area(s) of Expertise

- Environmental Governance
- Science and Technology Studies
- Environmental Sociology
- Political Ecology
- Public Policy

Publications

• A framework for addressing racial and related inequities in conservation , Nature (2026)
• After quantification: Insights from India’s Soil Health Card scheme , Land Use Policy (2026)
• Economic valuation of nature and the environmental state , Economy and Society (2026)
• Buying nature to save it? From neoliberal failure to markets-at-hand , Environment and Planning E Nature and Space (2025)
• Food systems, transformation, and politics , The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food (2025)
• The politics of influence in biodiversity offsetting , Nature Sustainability (2025)
• A Fond Farewell to the Anthropocene , Issues in Science and Technology (2024)
• Climate, Environment, and Economy , Annual Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-economics (SASE) (2024)
• Compensatory Afforestation: Critical challenges in the era of climate change. , Indian Institute of Technology (2024)
• Debating the Use of Offsetting to Govern Land Use Transitions , 5th Open Science Meeting of the Global Land Program (2024)

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