HRI named Dr. David Yoskowitz its new Endowed Research Professor of Socio-Economics this fall, which makes him the sixth and final member of the Institute's endowed faculty.

Not your typical calculator-carrying, pencil-pushing economist, Yoskowitz has been described as the “Indiana Jones of Economics” by some of his colleagues. He earned the nickname while working as a professor near the Texas-Mexico border in 1999, when he began traveling to Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Nicaragua to do field work. “For a biologist, that wouldn’t be a big deal, but for an economist it’s a little unusual,” Yoskowitz admits.

Through his south-of-the-border summer research trips with a fellow professor from Texas A&M International University in Laredo, he was trying to find out what impact microfinance institutions could have on human well-being in Latin America. In conducting research, he and his colleague would interview the owners of tienditas (small in-home grocery stores) about what it would take to make their business grow into something larger.

Here's a whirlwind tour of Yoskowitz's history: he grew up in Northern California, went to undergraduate school back East outside of Boston, then worked in banking in San Francisco. In the 1990s, he went to graduate school at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, then taught college in both Lubbock and Laredo.

His teaching job in Laredo led to a position as an associate professor at TAMU-CC, where he was introduced to HRI and the Center for Coastal Studies. While conducting research at HRI, he continues to teach three courses per semester at TAMU-CC's College of Business.

Working in a multidisciplinary environment such as the one that exists at HRI has been a goal of Yoskowitz for some time. He describes HRI's reputation in the scientific world: “Everyone is excited about being a part of it because of the multiple disciples (natural and social sciences) being studied here. When scientists from other institutions and universities hear about The Harte Model, they can't believe we have all this under one roof.”

“I felt like I could learn something while I was here, that my colleagues could learn something from me, and that we could make a difference. Being part of HRI has added excitement into my work life,” he said.

Yoskowitz's connection with HRI came naturally, as he has always been interested in water issues and how economics affects it. During the State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit held at HRI in 2006, he was asked to put a productive value on the Gulf of Mexico, which helped bring him into focus to key players in

the scientific community. For his presentation, he divided the Gulf into four categories: shipping, oil and gas, tourism and fisheries in both Mexico and the US.

“There was some symmetry in how the six HRI programs were formed,” Yoskowitz recalls. Dr. Richard McLaughlin who heads the Marine Policy & Law Department was the first hired, and Yoskowitz who heads Socio-Economics was the last. “The first and last departments heads hired dealt with human dimensions and in a sense book ended the natural sciences. It shows HRI's commitment to giving human well-being as much importance as other topics,” he said.

“Paul Montagna and I came up with a table for environmental decision making that has four legs: science, policy, social/cultural and economic. You take away one leg and you don’t get a well-supported table for environmental decision making,” Yoskowitz said.

The Socio-Economics Group (SEG) that he heads is working on connecting the ecosystem back to human well-being and on studying the benefits that humans receive from nature. His group studies issues on a monetary scale, since it's a common metric that is easily understood, but it’s not the whole story. Pulling from his experiences in Latin America, he knows that well-being is not measured by how much money someone has but also all the other things that humans enjoy – recreation, aesthetics and time with family.

Yoskowitz's wife, Carolyn Walker, is a Registered Nurse. They were married in Belize in 2002 and have a four-year-old son named Max who enjoys visiting HRI and looking at all the “cool” stuff.