About me

I am a climate economist with seven years of experience in climate finance and data science. My research examines how transition and physical risks from climate change affect financial stability and property markets. I take an interdisciplinary approach, combining climate science and economics with technical expertise in machine learning, geospatial modelling, macroeconomic and agent-based modelling, and econometrics. These experiences position me as both an applied financial economist and a climate data scientist.

Currently, I work at Earth Sciences New Zealand, a New Zealand crown research institute with expertise in atmospheric, freshwater, marine research, as well as research on surface and subsurface of the Earth (September 2023-now). I also hold a honorary fellowship position at the University of Otago working on a MBIE Smart Idea project (2025-2027) entitled "Financial stability and improved policies through spatio-temporal hybrid climate stress tests" (Link). This is a follow-on project from the Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund project (Link) (2021-2024) at the University of Otago, entitled "Should I stay or should I go? Climate-change risks to property values across space and time, and the related implications for financial stability" where I work as a postdoctoral researcher in modelling the changes in climate-change flooding-related risks and how these risks changes over time in New Zealand.

University of Otago is also where I completed my PhD thesis entitled "Essays on climate finance transition risk" (2018-2021), under the supervision of: Professor Ivan Diaz-Rainey, Griffith University, AU (Homepage), Dr Duminda Kuruppuarachchi, University of Otago, NZ (Homepage), and Dr Matthew McCarten, University of Oxford, UK (Homepage). This thesis involves the assessment of transitional risks (i.e. carbon emissions, climate disclosure, NetZero commitments) on the largest U.S. banks and SP500 companies.

Prior to the graduate program, I have five years of working experience in insurance, finance & data analytics in the United States and in Vietnam. This includes 3 years in risk management role at Intel Vietnam (2010-2013), 1 year in data analytics at MD24 USA (2015-2016), 1 year in corporate finance in Pfizer Vietnam (2016-2017). I also interned at the Office of Chief Executive, Ministry for the Environment New Zealand one summer (Nov 2019 - Feb 2020).

Finance is my specialty. During my MBA program, I worked as a student equity analyst for Carlson Investment Fund (2013-2015). This is a student investment fund that manages US$ 20 million in total asset under management with focus on small cap stocks. I helped calculating fund performance and sent investors updates on our performance every quarter. I also have completed the CFA Level I in 2015, and I have worked as a teaching assistant for several 200 and 300-level finance classes.

Data science is my passion. I am aspired to apply machine learning algorithm and data analytic techniques in the decision making process. Recently, I developed my interest in GIS modelling as I am enthusiastic about using geospatial data to study the evoluation of the Earth’s system. I also tried Large Language Models to automate the analysis of climate risk disclosures. Outside of my work, I learnt to write codes and build algorithms from scratch.

In Research, I am driven by curiosity, seeking new understanding rather than striving for perfection. I am also interested in mentoring the next generation of junior researchers on the topics of climate economics and climate finance. In the past few years, I have involved in a few research projects where I helped MsC and PhD students on technical modelling.