He is the recipient of several prestigious awards including and most recently the National Water Commission Professor Peter Cullen Eureka Prize for Water Research and Innovation(2011), the Vice-Chancellors’ Award for Education, Excellence in Supervision and the ANU Commendation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2011).
Previously he was Chief Economist and Executive Director of the Australian Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (2011-2013), Senior Fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (2001-2004) at the ANU, Director of the Institute of the Environment (1999-2001) at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He has an abiding interest in the problems of the environment and public policy, especially the overexploitation and management of renewable resources (particularly fisheries and water), and the economics of energy and also the economics of non-renewable resources.
He graduated with a PhD in Economics from the University of British Columbia in 1992, and holds an MS degree from Iowa State University and an undergraduate degree from Massey University in agricultural economics. He has served as Editor of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics and currently serves on the editorial boards of International Journal of Environmental Economic, Water Resources and Economics, and Water Economics and Policy. He is presently an Editor for the journal Asia and Pacfic Policy Studies and Associate Editor for Food Security. He is the founder and Executive Editor of the Global Water Forum and a founding member of the FE2W Network.
He has published more than 100 scholarly articles in some of the world’s leading journals in economics and the life sciences (such as Science and Nature Climate Change), more than 30 chapters in books and over a dozen edited or co-authored books including in the past five years: Water Security, Economics and Governance (2013), A Dictionary of Climate Change and the Environment (2012), Water Resources Planning and Management (2011), Basin Futures Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin (2011), Handbook of Marine Fisheries Conservation and Management (2010) and Economics of Water Resources (2009).
He has served in numerous advisory roles and expert panels in Australia and overseas, including as Chair of the Social and Economics Reference Panel of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (2008-2009) and a member of the National Council on Education for Sustainability (2008-2010) and also as Chair of the International Geothermal Expert Group (2013-14).
Professor Grafton is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
