Zbigniew Bochniarz, Ph.D., joined the University of Washington’s Evans School faculty as a visiting professor in 2007. His teaching and research focus on the microeconomics of competition, strategies for sustainable development, and the economic, environmental, and social aspects of sustainability during the transformation processes in post-communist countries. Since 2005, Prof. Bochniarz has served as an affiliate faculty member of the Microeconomics of Competitiveness program at Harvard Business School. He also previously served as a visiting professor and senior fellow from 1986-2006 at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and at the Labovitz School of Management and Economics at the University of Minnesota-Duluth from 2006-07. He also served on the faculty at the Warsaw School of Economics from 1968-85.
Prof. Bochniarz is the founder of the Center for Nations in Transition at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs, which became an international leader in designing and delivering foreign assistance programs to Central and Eastern Europe in the areas of education, environment, and institutional reforms for sustainable development. The center has initiated more than 20 projects raising $38 million and training 44,000 people in the countries of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
Prof. Bochniarz has been named an honorary professor at Silesian University of Technology in Poland, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania, and the University of Warmia and Mazury in Poland. He is also the recipient of the 2006 University of Minnesota President’s Award for Global Engagement, 2004 World Academy of Art and Science fellowship, 2001 University of Minnesota President’s Award for Outstanding Service, 2000 Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit award from the president of the Republic of Poland, 1988 Humphrey Medal Student Award, and 1986 Scientific Award of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland.
Outside of academia, Prof. Bochniarz has served as the chairman of the Environmental Partnership for Central Europe Polish Chapter Board of Trustees, honorary president of both the ETP Foundation and Association of Environmental Private Firms in Romania, and founding member of the Polish Chapter of Environmental Partnership Foundation for Central Europe, the ETP foundations in Bulgaria and Slovakia, the Center for Environmental Studies in Budapest, the Institute for Environmental Policy in Prague, the Institute for Sustainable Development in Warsaw, and the Energy Efficiency Foundation in Poland. He has also served as an editorial board member for the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, voluntary senior advisor for the East European Program of the UNDP, and voluntary advisor for the Ministries of Environment in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia.
Prof. Bochniarz is a current member of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the European Environmental and Resource Economist Association, the American Agricultural Economics Association, and The Competitiveness Institute. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland and an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the Miskolc University in Hungary.