Mara Tayag is a senior economics officer of the Regional Cooperation and Integration Division at ADB’s Economic Research and Development Impact Department. She conducts research primarily in the areas of trade integration, cross-border investment, and measures of regional cooperation and integration (RCI). She helps manage the preparation and publication of the Asian Economic Integration Report, ADB’s annual flagship publication on the progress of RCI in Asia and the Pacific. She also supervises a team of national consultants that maintains the Asia Regional Integration Center website and databases, and provides support for RCI-related research. She obtained her masters degree in economics from the University of the Philippines.

Michael Mehling is Deputy Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (MIT CEEPR) and a Professor at the University of Strathclyde Law School. He has worked for over two decades on climate policy design and implementation at the domestic and international level, with a focus on carbon pricing and its intersections with energy and financial markets as well as international trade policy. On these topics, Dr. Mehling has advised decision makers in over a dozen countries, testified before or briefed legislators in the European Union, United Kingdom, and the United States, and served as an expert in several climate litigation and arbitration cases. He is also the founding editor of the Carbon & Climate Review (CCLR) and a founding board member of Ecologic Institute in Washington DC, the Blockchain & Climate Institute (BCI) in London, and the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition (ERCST) in Brussels. Trained as a lawyer, he is a German and American citizen, and has lived for extended periods in Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

Jackson Ewing is director of energy and climate policy at the Duke University Nicholas Institute of Energy, Environment & Sustainability. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment and a faculty affiliate with the Duke Center for International Development at the Sanford School of Public Policy.

Dr. Ewing’s current work focuses on international climate finance and just energy transition partnerships, environmental markets, US national energy transition policies, and US-China climate and energy relations. He also leads educational exchanges between Asia and the United States through a leadership role with Duke Kunshan University in greater Shanghai. Dr. Ewing has worked in more than twenty countries, and collaborates closely with actors in government, the private sector, civil society, and international organizations. He publishes widely through a range of mediums and contributes to radio, television, and print media.

Prior to joining Duke, Dr. Ewing was director of Asian Sustainability at the Asia Society Policy Institute under the leadership of the Hon. Kevin Rudd, where he led projects on Asian carbon market cooperation and sustainable resource development in the ASEAN Economic Community. He also previously served as a MacArthur Fellow and head of the Environment, Climate Change and Food Security Program at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Dr. Ewing holds a doctorate in environmental security and master’s degree in international relations from Australia’s Bond University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the College of Charleston.

Junjie Zhang is a Professor of Environmental Economics in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and the Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Investment at Duke Kunshan University. His research focuses on empirical issues in environmental and resource economics, covering air pollution, energy transition, and climate change. He has received funding from reputable sources, including the US National Science Foundation, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, China National Natural Science Foundation, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, the Energy Foundation, The World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.

Zhang is a co-chair of the Committee of Environmental Economics in the Chinese Academy of Environmental Science, a member of the Advisory Board for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and the Chief Economist of the Green Finance Forum of 60. Zhang is also an associate editor for the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (JEBO) and an editorial board member for the Journal of the Association of Environmental & Resource Economists (JAERE) and the Journal of Environmental Economics & Management (JEEM).

Zhang served as the founding director of DKU’s Environmental Research Center and International Master of Environmental Policy Program. Before that, he was an associate professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He was the Volkswagen Visiting Chair in Sustainability in the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University. He also served as a senior advisor for the Asia Society, an auditor for the Asian Association of Environmental & Resource Economics, and a co-editor for the China Economic Review.

Zhang holds a BS from the Renmin University of China, a BS and an MS from Tsinghua University, and a PhD from Duke University.