Rate My Professor Curtis Rollins

Dr. Curtis Rollins is a Lecturer in the School of Agriculture and Environment at the University of Western Australia, where he also serves as Deputy Director (Training) of the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy. He earned his BSc and MSc in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Alberta in Canada and completed his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UWA in 2024, with a thesis titled "Response anomalies in stated preference studies." Prior to his current academic appointment, Rollins tutored and demonstrated environmental economics and science courses at UWA from 2020 to 2023 and served as a sessional lecturer and unit coordinator for Natural Resource Economics at the University of Alberta in 2016. Earlier in his career, he worked in market research and public engagement for the public service in Canada.

As an applied economist, Rollins specializes in modelling choices, preferences, and perceptions related to food and environmental issues, integrating approaches from psychology and sociology to improve economic models of human behaviour. His research applies to renewable energy transitions, farmers’ adoption of environmentally beneficial practices, natural hazards, biodiversity, waste management, and forest policy, employing methods such as choice experiments, non-market valuation, structural equation modelling, and survey research. Key publications include "The Role of Social Norms and Economic Incentives in Encouraging the Adoption of Native Gardens" (Land Economics, 2025), "Opinion poles: Polarised views on energy developments in Canada's oil province" (Energy Research and Social Science, 2025), "Public preferences for street tree characteristics: A best-worst scaling experiment" (Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, 2025), "Public preferences for water-conserving groundcovers on verges" (Water Resources and Economics, 2024), and "Biosolids and the Public: Rethinking Community Engagement in a Time of Change" (2025). Rollins has received the 2024 Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Best Post-Graduate Thesis Award, the 2023 Agricultural Economics Society Essay Prize, the 2023 Quality of Research Discovery Award for Early- and Mid-Career Researchers, and was selected as a Canadian delegate to the 2022 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Economic Sciences. He chaired the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society from 2021 to 2023 and teaches environmental economics courses at UWA.