About

PhD Quantitative Researcher
Teacher
Hiker

aaron [at] acwatt [dot] net

I am an Applied Economist (PhD, UC Berkeley) and ML Scientist specializing in the design and estimation of data-driven frameworks to solve complex problems in markets, policy, and technology. My work bridges the gap between rigorous economic theory and production-grade machine learning, utilizing a high-level toolkit to drive decision-making under uncertainty.

My expertise is built on three pillars:

  • Industrial Organization: Applying market analysis and estimation techniques to understand firm behavior and supply networks.
  • Environmental & Public Economics: Utilizing reduced-form modeling and causal inference to quantify policy impacts and regulatory outcomes.
  • Energy & Resource Economics: Developing structural models to simulate and optimize complex resource-allocation systems.

With over 15 years of Python experience, I build end-to-end analysis pipelines that scale–from high-performance simulations of millions of scenarios to agentic AI workflows. I am dedicated to staying at the frontier of applied artificial intelligence and machine learning, currently focused on integrating LLMs and automated research loops to improve the speed and accuracy of economic forecasting and model specification.

Featured Project

Optimizing Enforcement via Strategic Agent Modeling

Problems: Predicting how strategic agents (firms/regulators) react to regulatory and environmental constraints; Optimizing network of monitors with spillover effects.

Technical Solution: Developed a random forest approximation of complex best-response functions to bypass restrictive theoretical assumptions; scaled simulations across 42 million scenarios using HPC (Slurm).

Business/Policy Impact: Quantified the policy impacts of optimal siting for federal enforcement.

Research Interests

AI & Machine Learning Innovation
Applied Probability & Stochastic Modeling
Causal Inference & Bayesian Experimentation

Education

PhD Student, Graduate Student Researcher
Dept. of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
(2020 – 2025)
Fields: Energy, Resource, Environmental Economics; Industrial Organization; Public Finance

MS in Applied Economics, Oregon State University
(2018 – 2020)
Research Project: Quantifying Colony Collapse Disorder in US Honey Bees
Minor: Mathematics

BS in Physics, Oregon State University
(2010 – 2014)
TA: Introduction to Electronics for Physicists
Thesis: Measurement and Modeling of Zinc Sulfide Thin Films using Ellipsometry and Reflection Spectroscopy