Hilton Simmet

Hilton Simmet joins the FAS as Lecturer in Political Science. His research and teaching interests include the comparative politics of science and technology, with a particular focus on economic inequality, energy transitions, and sustainable development. Drawing on his dissertation research and background in political theory, he is working on a book (Just Economics: Inequality in Three Political Cultures) about how economists and inequality researchers articulate distinct, culturally grounded visions of justice and the public good. His current work examines the “growth paradigm” in economic thought as a political project that embeds assumptions about technology and human development that have been challenged by growing concerns about ecological and planetary “limits.” His teaching includes courses on technology, environment and society; comparative environmental governance; and US and international environmental politics and policy.

Hilton has academic training in social theory and physics (AB) at Harvard College, political theory (MA) at Yale University, and Public Policy (PhD) at Harvard Kennedy School, where he specialized in Science and Technology Studies and development economics. Before joining Yale, he spent a postdoctoral year in Germany at the Research Institute for Sustainability, Potsdam.