Eric Werker is the William Saywell Professor at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development and the United Nations University – World Institute for Development Economics Research. He has researched the economic impact of epidemics, including the West African Ebola epidemic, as well as the political economy of other natural disasters, and is currently advising the tourism sector in British Columbia on the impact of COVID-19. He earned an AB and PhD in economics from Harvard.