He completed his Ph.D. in 2016 in environmental and energy economics at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He received a master’s degree in environmental management from Yale, and a bachelor’s degree in music performance from Portland State University. Jesse worked as a wilderness ranger in Yosemite National Park, a goat cheese farmer in southern France and a visiting researcher at the University of California Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. His research in environmental economics focuses on energy, transportation, and water conservation. Specific research topics include modeling the effects of California’s cap and trade program on the transportation sector, determining the costs of increasing vehicle fleet fuel efficiency, and identifying peer effects in water conservation.