Helen Ding is an Environmental Economist with the Economics Center at the World Resources Institute. Her work primarily focuses on terrestrial ecosystems and involves the development of economic models to measure and demonstrate the socio-economic value of natural resources for better government and business decision-making. At WRI, she works as a cross-programmatic economist to support the analysis and development of practical tools in Programs across the Institute. Amongst others, Helen contributes to Land and Resource Rights Initiative and develops studies that demonstrate the essential economic benefits of land tenure security in developing countries. She also supports Global Restoration Initiative to ensure the consistency and robustness of economic analyses undertaken in different geographies where WRI work. In addition, Helen supports the Land Use work of the New Climate Economy project, and works closely with Aqueduct Projects, Finance and Business Centers and WRI China office on a few topic areas, including sustainable water pricing, economic efficiency of water resources redistribution, economic assessment of biodiversity and ecosystems, valuation and accounting of natural capital risks for business and financial institutions, and economic costs of air pollution on health and employment.

Prior to joining WRI, Helen was a senior economist at Deloitte Sustainability Service in Paris and the deputy leader of Deloitte’s Natural Capital Community of Practice for Europe and Asia. In her capacity, she led projects related to resource economics and natural capital, and contributed to the technical development of the Natural Capital Protocol under the leadership of the WBCSD. Prior to that, Helen gained considerable research experience in market and nonmarket valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and socio-economic impact assessment of climate change and biodiversity policy through her various appointments in several leading environmental economics research institutes in the EU. Among her professional achievements, Helen‘s PhD research on the “Economic Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being” received UNECE/FAO PhD Thesis Award in 2011 for recognizing its significant contribution to the "Sustainable Forest Management in the UNECE region”.

Helen holds a PhD degree in Science and Management of Climate Change from Italy, a MSc in Environmental Sciences with specialization in Environmental Economics and Natural Resources from the Netherlands, and a BA in Economics and Finance from China. Helen is an active global traveler and has country experiences in Africa, Asia, Central & South America, Europe, Pacific islands and USA.