Max Nathanson

Defining Climate Security: the Root Causes of US-Bound Migration since NAFTA

Max Nathanson is a DPhil candidate at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment and St. Antony's College, supervised by Cameron Hepburn and Diane Davis (Harvard). He is a Rotary Global Scholar. His research explores the political economy of climate security, examining how perceptions of the root causes of migration from Mexico and Central America to the US have contributed to policy development influencing outcomes related to climate resilience, economic development, community integration, and regional security.

Prior to the DPhil he worked in US politics: managing economic development and future of work policy for Colorado Governor Jared Polis, where he was a core member of the Governor's COVID-19 response team, and as a policy advisor at Co-Equal, working with US congressional staff on legislative affairs and congressional oversight. He was also a small business organizer for the Biden-Harris campaign and is the founder of the Oxford Urbanists, a global urban development social enterprise.

Max holds an MPhil in international development from Oxford, and a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, in political science from the University of Colorado, where he was a Norlin Scholar. He is passionate about promoting inclusive economic development through community organizing in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado. He was named a Boulder County Leadership Fellow in 2020 and a 30 Under 30 Innovator for Urban Development by UN-Habitat in 2019.