Professors Jonas Nahm and Johannes Urpelainen awarded COVID-19 Launchpad Grant

Jonas Nahm, Assistant Professor of Energy, Resources, and Environment, and Johannes Urpelainen, Director and Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment, were recently awarded a $25,000 COVID-19 Launchpad Grant created by The Alliance for a Healthier World, a Johns Hopkins University signature initiative that integrates university-wide expertise and diverse perspectives to unlock groundbreaking knowledge in addressing unresolved global health equity challenges.

Nahm and Urpelainen collaborated with Scot M. Miller, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, to develop the winning grant proposal titled, “Climate Impact Assessment of the Post-Pandemic Stimulus.” Over the next few months, they plan to track global stimulus spending in order to better understand how these funds are spent, assess how investments correlate with the avoided emissions, and create a website this summer that will compare each country’s stimulus packages.

“I hope our efforts will not only provide the basis for solid academic research, but really contribute to public conversation on this opportunity to shift our economy on a sustainable path in the recovery,” said Nahm. Urpelainen explained that the coming economic stimulus policies will play a critically important role in shaping our economic and environmental future adding, “this grant allows us to monitor and evaluate these policies systematically."

Joining Nahm and Urpelainen as COVID-19 Launchpad Grant recipients are Johns Hopkins SAIS colleagues, Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy and Ethics, and Jeremy Shiffman, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Health Policy.