CSB Professor, Alum Makes UN Pool of Experts

UNCW Professor of Economics Dr. Peter Schuhmann has been appointed by the United Nations as a member of the Pool of Experts of the United Nations Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment. He is listed under “Specialty 4: The South Atlantic Ocean and the Wider Caribbean.” 
  
Hundreds of experts from diverse disciplines and locations are required to support the preparation of the assessments conducted under the Regular Process. He is also a coordinating author for the Third World Ocean Assessment chapter on tourism. 
 
Dr. Schuhmann is “honored and excited…and a little nervous, too” for this appointment. He explains this is a pro-bono position and stems from his work in the Blue Economy space.  
  
“Blue Economy is a broad term for an approach to resource management that seeks to capture wealth and value from coastal and marine resources while managing those resources (which means people) in a way that it is ecologically, economically and culturally sustainable,” he said. 
  
Dr. Schuhmann has published in journals such as Ecological Economics, Land Economics, Marine Resource Economics, Natural Resource Modeling and The Journal of Environmental Management, among others. 

In his twenty-fifth year of teaching, Dr. Schuhmann’s time at UNCW began in front of not behind the podium. He earned a bachelor’s from UNCW in 1990 and returned to teach in 1999.  
  
“I did my graduate work (master’s and Ph.D.) at North Carolina State University studying under Jim Easley, a fisheries economist,” he said. “My area of research is the economics of coastal and marine resources. When a position opened at UNCW for an applied microeconomist, it was a natural fit.” 
  
Dr. Schuhmann is a past recipient of a UNC Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award, MBA Outstanding Faculty Award, Board of Trustees Teaching Excellence Award, Distinguished Teaching Professorship Award and the Cameron School of Business Outstanding Alumni Award, among others. 
  
“Coming back to UNCW and CSB and having the opportunity to work alongside the professors that inspired me to study economics is humbling and rewarding. Being an alum helps me relate to my students because I was literally in their seat when I was their age. I think of my experiences here as a student every day,” he said.