Diane Dupont, Professor in Brock University’s Department of Economics, has been named an inaugural Fellow by the Canadian Resource and Environmental Economics Association (CREEA).<\/p>\n
The title was conferred at a virtual CREEA event in November in recognition of her work to advance the profession of environmental and resource economics and her significant contributions to CREEA and its operations.<\/p>\n
Dupont, who has also held both the Chancellor\u2019s Chair for Research Excellence and the Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award at Brock, says she was surprised and delighted to receive the honour, one of only two awarded for the first time this year.<\/p>\n
She called it especially meaningful because CREEA is an organization that has been \u201cinstrumental\u201d in her career, a place where she presented work, reviewed the work of others and networked with colleagues in what was \u201calways a very friendly, helpful spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dupont also helped host CREEA\u2019s annual conference at Brock twice, in 2001 and 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was proud to showcase Brock, to be able to show what we\u2019ve got here, and I think in a small way we helped put Brock on the academic map for environmental work in Canada,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Marcel Oestreich, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, attended the conference in 2013 and recalled a telling moment from the keynote address.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the keynote speaker for the conference expressing surprise that Diane had asked him to be the keynote speaker on the topic of fisheries, as he thought that she herself should have been the keynote given her many important contributions to that field,\u201d said Oestreich.<\/p>\n
Brandon Schaufele, Associate Professor of Business, Economics and Public Policy at the Ivey Business School at Western University, spoke about Dupont at the award event and later described Dupont as a world-renowned researcher. He commended both her ability to build research networks and her service to organizations that support researchers.<\/p>\n
He also pointed out she has built a thriving career in what has been, until recently, a male-dominated field.<\/p>\n
\u201cDiane is one of the first and leading female environmental economists in Canada,\u201d said Schaufele. \u201cShe has provided an example for a lot people with her work on policy issues and leading research networks, in addition to her support of up-and-coming scholars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dupont\u2019s willingness to collaborate and explore interdisciplinary research opportunities has always been a priority, even in the early days of her research career when environmental economics was just beginning to grow into its own area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always felt the broader context was really important for understanding what was going on, so it was very natural for me to be involved very early on in my career with the Canadian Water Network, where I was working with engineers, hydrologists, soil scientists and microbiologists to look at issues around water quality,\u201d said Dupont. \u201cI always thought I could learn from people in other disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her early focus on resource economics shifted over time, from fisheries to water systems and non-market valuation, or \u201cpeople\u2019s preferences and values for ecosystem services that benefit them, but that we generally don\u2019t pay for in a market setting,\u201d as she explains it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn one of the papers that is most often cited from 2004, I took some models of people\u2019s willingness to pay for better recreational services relating to water and looked at them through a gendered lens \u2014 but also through whether the respondent was a parent,\u201d said Dupont. \u201cI was interested in knowing if males and females with and without kids would express the same values for improvements to these services, and it turned out they didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her determination to examine the issue through different lenses was unusual in the field at the time of publication, but Dupont says that new approaches have combined with the emergence of big data to allow for positive change.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the models that we previously used in economics focused on providing a single or homogeneous behavioural response \u2014 so, in other words, the model would predict the behaviour of a non-gendered, non-marginalized person, a \u2018person in society\u2019, the so-called \u2018economic agent\u2019,\u201d Dupont said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t include detail about the context or what might be motivating those choices and to see whether choices might be different by people who are different, but by having a larger amount of data and by having models that could embrace the heterogeneity of responses, that\u2019s where I think the discipline has made a lot of strides.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dupont has made extensive contributions to that development as a valued researcher and consultant. From 2011 to 2013, she served as research co-ordinator in Brock’s Environmental Sustainability Research Centre, of which she was also a co-founder, and sat on the Research Management Committee of the Water Economics, Policy and Governance Network from 2012 to 2020, becoming the Scientific Director in 2016. She has also served on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Water Network, chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Worldfish Centre in Malaysia and consulted for organizations in the US, UK and Canada, including Canada\u2019s Eco-Fiscal Commission and Health Canada, in addition to serving on multiple SSHRC Review Committees and working as an Associate Editor on several journals in her field.<\/p>\n
Through it all, she made time to support and mentor colleagues both within and outside of her discipline and to provide service through administrative roles, most recently as the Interim Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and as Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences from 2013 to 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been an honour and a delight to work with Diane in her various administrative roles both within the Faculty of Social Sciences and the broader University,\u201d said Ingrid Makus, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. \u201cHer commitment to research excellence and her generosity in supporting faculty, students and staff make her a wonderful colleague.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dupont believes doing her best and being accountable is an important part of being a public servant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to give back to students and I want to do good research,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m honoured to be working in a job that I really enjoy and that allows me to do a variety of different things \u2014 the research, the teaching, the administration \u2014 and to really make differences in people\u2019s lives, particularly for students that I\u2019ve trained and the junior colleagues I have mentored.\u201d<\/p>\n
She advises junior colleagues and students just starting out on their career paths to try to find a mentor and to seek out colleagues who they can trust as they look for opportunities and find the courage to try something new.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the most important thing is to take a step back to assess what you\u2019re doing with your time,\u201d Dupont said. \u201cI\u2019m advocating for a more balanced life. I\u2019ve been extremely fortunate to have had a wonderful husband, an amazing family in my kids and extended family, and my friends. It\u2019s so important that you don\u2019t get so focused on the career that you forget all the other things that bring you joy in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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