Rusty Pritchard's Profile

My real name is Lowell Pritchard Jr., but I go by Rusty because I had red hair when I was born. The beard is a little red when I'm out in the sunshine. I keep the nickname in case I ever decide to run for sheriff in the South. I blog at rustypritchard.com.

I am a resource economist who has worked at the interface between resource use and environmental conservation for 20 years. I serve as a key adviser to numerous evangelical organizations and leaders on climate issues and creation care. I've spoken about faith, science, and the environment at many colleges and universities, conferences, churches, symposia, and leadership summits, including numerous live broadcast interviews and debates. I am the President and a Co-founder of Flourish, and prior to that I worked on the Evangelical Climate Initiative. I also worked for several years for a large environmental organization on designing incentive systems and institutions to encourage voluntary, market-based conservation on private foresty and farm lands. As a full-time faculty member at Emory University I helped create the Department of Environmental Studies there in 1999.

From 1992 to 2002 I was a researcher and science office with two major international research programs that integrated and applied social and natural sciences—the Resilience Alliance, and the Land Use and Land Cover Change program of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme.

I've taught courses and lectured worldwide in natural resource economics, environmental institutions, public health, resource use and management, environmental justice, ecological economics, and environmental decision-making under uncertainty. I hold degrees from Duke University (B.S., zoology) and University of Florida (Ph.D., resource economics; M.S., environmental engineering sciences). So yes, I'm a doctor, but not the kind that does anyone any good, as my kids like to point out.

I live in inner-city Atlanta with my wife, Joanna (a native of Scotland) and three children (Angus, Ewan, and Beatrice), where we serve in a multi-racial church doing church-planting, neighborhood evangelism, and community development. I'm a regular speaker on creation care, economics, and discipleship at churches, Christian colleges, youth groups, and community organizations. I grew up in North Florida and I enjoy gardening, canoeing, fishing, and Southern barbecue.

Email me if you want me to speak at your event (or to recommend someone else).