I am an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Bentley University since Fall 2025. I received my PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University in 2025.
I do research on environmental, health, and public economics. Here is my Google Scholar page. Here is a 2024 thread summarizing my research.
From 2021-2022, I served as the Climate Staff Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
I previously worked for the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, as a management consultant for Altman Solon, Goldman Sachs, and The Onion (America’s Finest News Source). Outside of research, I enjoy listening to jazz, procuring vintage clothing, attempting to learn French, and competitive stair climbing.
Get in touch: dbressler (at) bentley.edu
News and Updates
2025-11-19: The Guardian and ProPublica estimated the temperature-related mortality impacts from recent climate rollbacks, drawing in part from my 2021 Nature Communications paper on the mortality cost of carbon and my job market paper: Trump’s Anti-Green Agenda Could Lead to 1.3 Million More Climate Deaths
2025-11-03: Our paper Working Under the Sun: The Role of Occupation in Temperature-Related Mortality in Mexico, coauthored with Anna Papp, Luis Sarmiento, Jeff Shrader, and Andrew Wilson has been accepted at the Journal of Human Resources!
2025-11-01: New publication! Valuing statistical absences? Why benefit-cost analysis cannot avoid population ethics, coauthored with Andy Stawasz, was published in the November 2025 edition of Ecological Economics!
2025-09-02: My first day of class as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Bentley University! In my first semester, I am teaching two sections of EC111: Introduction to Microeconomics.
2025-06-11: I gave a comment to the Associated Press on EPA’s proposed ruling: EPA says power plant carbon emissions aren’t dangerous. We asked 30 scientists: Here’s what they say.
2025-06-05: Seth Borenstein from the Associated Press wrote up an interesting article, Pollution rules targeted by EPA are projected to save billions of dollars and thousands of lives, that used my results from my 2021 Nature Communications paper on the mortality cost of carbon to estimate the death toll from temperature-related mortality caused by the recent rollback of EPA rules. How AP calculated the costs and death toll of EPA rule rollbacks shows more details on their methodology.
2025-05-20: Graduation day! After many years of work, I received my PhD.
2025-02-27: I did a short interview with Columbia SIPA, where I discussed my recent research on temperature-related mortality in Mexico.
2024-12-06: New publication! Heat disproportionately kills young people: Evidence from wet-bulb temperature in Mexico was published in Science Advances. It was covered in 144 news outlets, including the NYTimes, AP, NPR.
2024-06-15: New publication! Projected environmental and public health benefits of extended-interval dosing: an analysis of pembrolizumab use in a US national health system was published in The Lancet Oncology. It received 118 news mentions, including NPR.