Dr. Charles Sims is the TVA Distinguished Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy and Director of the Center for Energy, Transportation, and Environmental Policy at the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics. He attended the University of Tennessee, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Forest Resource Management and a Master’s of Science in Forestry, with a minor in Environmental Policy.

Sims’s research interests center on environmental and natural resource economics with a specific emphasis on the role of risk and uncertainty in natural resource, environmental, and energy policy.  His past research has investigated issues related to renewable energy adoption, climate change mitigation and adaptation, invasive and endangered species, forest management, and infectious diseases.  Sims’s work has been published in environmental and natural resource economics journals, agricultural economics journals, general interest economics journals, applied ecology journals, public health journals, and general interest science journals. 

With an eye toward adding physical and natural science realism to his economic models, Sims often collaborates with ecologists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, engineers, foresters, biologists, hydrologists, and computer scientists. In 2022, Dr. Sims was part of a team that won the University of Tennessee’s Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research Award.

Dr. Sims is a co-editor of the academic journal Resource and Energy Economics, has served on several TVA advisory groups, provides research support for the Tennessee State Energy Policy Council, and was a technical editor for Tennessee’s statewide plan for future water availability (TNH20).