Rate My Professor Michail Fragkias

Michail Fragkias, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Economics at Boise State University’s College of Business and Economics, where he serves as Director of the Business Research and Economic Development Center and internship coordinator for the department. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Clark University and a B.A. from the National University of Athens. His career includes serving as Executive Officer of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change project, an International Human Dimensions Programme core project hosted by Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability, from November 2006 to August 2012, and as Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Environmental Science and Policy from September 2003 to September 2006.

Fragkias is an applied economist and interdisciplinary social scientist whose research focuses on urban and regional economic development, land use change, urban spatial structure dynamics, and the environment. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, along with two edited books, appearing in journals such as PNAS, Science of the Total Environment, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Global Environmental Change, Urban Climate, PLoS ONE, and Environment and Planning B. Key publications include “Urban land expansion: the role of population and economic growth for 300+ cities” (npj Urban Sustainability, 2022), “Land Conservation Can Mitigate Freshwater Ecosystem Services Degradation Due to Climate Change in a Semiarid Catchment: The Case of the Portneuf River Catchment, Idaho, USA” (Science of the Total Environment, 2019), “A comparative study of urban fragmentation patterns in small and mid-sized cities of Idaho” (Urban Ecosystems, 2018), and “A Synthesis of Global Urbanization Projections” (2013). He served as lead author for the UN-CBD Cities and Biodiversity Outlook and the 3rd National Climate Assessment of the US Global Change Research Program, and as contributing author for the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report. Fragkias has received the 2019 COBE Distinguished Research Professor Award, University Foundation Scholar Award for Research, and Exceptional Research Influence recognition from Web of Science Group, reflecting his status as a highly cited researcher with multiple papers in the top 1% globally by citations.