David Konisky’s research focuses on U.S. environmental policy and politics, with particular emphasis on environmental and energy justice, regulation, federalism, and public opinion.
His research has been published in various journals, including the American Journal of Political Science, Climatic Change, Environmental Research Letters, Global Environmental Change, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the Journal of Politics, Nature Energy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Public Opinion Quarterly.
He has authored or edited six books on environmental politics and policy, including Fifty Years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Progress, Retrenchment and Opportunities (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020, with Jim Barnes and John D. Graham), Failed Promises: Evaluating the Federal Government's Response to Environmental Justice (MIT Press, 2015), and Cheap and Clean: How Americans Think about Energy in the Age of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2014, with Steve Ansolabehere). He has been an editor of the journal Environmental Politics since 2021 and became in editor-in-chief in 2024.
Konisky’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy, and the Russell Sage Foundation.
Konisky earned his Ph.D. in political science from MIT. He also holds two master’s degrees from Yale University: one in environmental management and one in international relations. At the undergraduate level, he studied history and environmental studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
