Karen R. Polenske

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Karen Rosel Polenske (born March 20, 1937) is an American regional economist specialized in energy, environmental, and infrastructure analyses, and input-output accounts and models, particularly at the subnational scale. She is currently the Peter de Florez Professor of Regional Political Economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Polenske received her undergraduate degree in Home Economics from the Oregon State University in 1959. She holds a master's degree in public administration and economics from Syracuse University and a PhD in economics from Harvard University, where she was in charge of the regional work at the Harvard Economic Research Project. Working with Wassily W. Leontief, she directed one of the most extensive multiregional input-output research studies of the U.S. economy in history.

She has been director of the multiregional planning research team at MIT since 1972. She is also past president of the International Input-Output Association. Polenske has been an advisor to international agencies, including the United Nations Development Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the World Bank, as well as an economic consultant to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers.