Madhavi Venkatesan

Associate Teaching Professor of Economics

Madhavi Venkatesan is a faculty member in the Department of Economics at Northeastern University, the founder and executive director of the Cape Cod-based non-profit Sustainable Practices, and the editor-in-chief of the journal Sustainability and Climate Change. A routine contributor to the discourse on sustainability, having written articles, chapters, and books, as well as being an internationally invited public speaker on the relationship between economics and sustainability, she is actively engaged in operationalizing sustainability to promote a future aligned to the well-being of all the Earth’s inhabitants.

Madhavi received her BA, MA, and PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University, was a Mellon post-doctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis and has a master’s in Sustainability and Environmental Management from Harvard University, and a master’s in Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School. Prior to re-entering academics in 2014, she was in the financial services industry. From 2006 to 2011 she represented three Fortune 250 U.S. domiciled insurers in the capacity of an investor relations officer. Her position directly reported to the Chief Financial Officer, with a dotted line to the Chief Executive Officer. Madhavi was responsible for the earnings release, annual investor day, annual report, and financial communications with the investor public, primarily institutions and equity analysts. She represented Unum, ALICO (an AIG subsidiary), and the Hartford Financial Services Group during their respective crises and was actively recruited in each representation change.

Prior to being an investor relations officer, Madhavi was a market strategist for Edward Jones at the company’s headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. Madhavi has received recognition across her career from an invitation to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, to a Fulbright Distinguished Lectureship, to a citation from the Governor of Massachusetts for the efforts of the nonprofit she founded. On February 29, 2024, USA Today recognized Madhavi as the Woman of the Year for the state of Massachusetts and in May 2024, MacMillan Learning awarded her with their inaugural Instructor Innovation Award for her inclusion of sustainability in the teaching of economics principles.

Featured Courses:

ECON 1711 Economics of Sustainability

ECON 3711: Economics of Race

ECON 3916: Religious Influences on Economics

Featured News:

Madhavi Venkatesan named Massachusetts Woman of the Year

Cape Cod Times: State is catching up with Cape Cod plastic bottle bans, proponent says

Christian Science Monitor: Plastics have shaped nearly every aspect of society. Now what?

Northeastern Global News:

What is Jevons Paradox? And why it may — or may not — predict AI’s future

Mass deportations are a day one priority for Trump. Economists explain how it could lead to a recession

Will the US ban the use of single-use plastics like England, India, Hong Kong and other countries?

What’s the real cost of a bottle of soda (and everything else)?

View CV

Awards & Honors

2024 Macmillan Learning Teaching Innovation Award
2024 USA Today, Massachusetts Woman of the Year
2018 Fulbright Cy-Sip Distinguished Lectureship, Philippines: Economics of Climate Change

Selected Publications

BOOKS

Venkatesan, M. (forthcoming under contract, 2025). Economics of Sustainability. New York, NY: Springer.

Venkatesan, M. & Luongo, G. (2019). SDG8 – Sustainable Economic Growth and Decent Work for All. London, UK: Emerald Publishing.

Venkatesan, M. (2019). Policy-making, visioning, structures, management and strategies. Volume Editor, In Walter Leal Filho (Ed), Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. London, England: Springer.

Venkatesan, M. (forthcoming 2025, 2018). Foundations of Macroeconomics, A Framework for Sustainable Practices. (2nd Ed.). Charlotte, NC: Kona Publishing.

Venkatesan, M. (forthcoming 2025, 2017). Foundations of Microeconomics, A Framework for Sustainable Practices. (2nd Ed.). Charlotte, NC: Kona Publishing.

Venkatesan, M. (forthcoming 2025, 2017). Economics: A Primer, A Framework for Sustainable Practices. (4^th Ed.). Charlotte, NC: Kona Publishing.

CHAPTERS

Venkatesan, M. (forthcoming 2025). Facilitating the impartial spectator: Rita Dove’s Poetry. In Fick, M. & Kumar, A. Cultural, Historical and Literary Representations in the Writing of Rita Dove. University of Mississippi Press.

Venkatesan, M., Burwick, A., DiGeso, T. & MacLennan, J. (forthcoming 2025). Is spirituality the missing component of sustainable development? In J. M. Luetz,, W. L. Filho & P. D. Dunn Handbook of Traditional Spirituality and Sustainability. Springer

Venkatesan, M. (2025). The contribution of university economics teaching to sustainability. In Filho, W. L., Newman, J., Salvia, A. L., Trevisan, L. T., & Corazza, L. North American and European Perspectives on Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer.

Venkatesan, M. Elsewedy, K., Vummadising, S., & Gunasti, B. (2024). Sustainability: A business case for adoption. In Wall, T., Filho, W. L., Trevisan, L., & Shore, A. Sustainability in Business Education. Springer.

Venkatesan, M., Barot, R., Chinni, A., Regenstrief, A., Singh, P., Sucov, J., &Sun, J. (2023). Documentary Film and Institutional Behavioral Change: A Student-Driven Mobilization for Sustainability. In Filho, W., Salvia, A., Pallant, E., Choate, B. & Pearce, K. Educating Sustainability Leaders of the Future. Springer.

Venkatesan, M. (2023). Economic Theory: Analyzing the Feminization of Urban Crime. In Grantham, R. Studying Urban Crime. Cognella.

Venkatesan, M., Yorde Rincon, M., Greevers, K., Welch, S. & Cline, E. (2023). Socially responsible consumption and marketing in practice. In Bhattacharyya, J. Dealing with Socially Responsible Consumers – A Marketing Management Casebook. Singapore: Springer Nature.

Venkatesan, M. (2022). Culture, education, and sustainability: A systemic approach. In Starik, M. Handbook of Multi-level Climate Action: Sparking and Sustaining Transformative Approaches. London: Edgar Elvers.

Venkatesan, M. (2022). Marketing Sustainability. In Ogunyemi, A. and Burgal, V. Products for Conscious Consumers: Developing, Marketing and Selling Ethical Product. London: Emerald Publishers.

Venkatesan, M. (2022). Sustainable Economic Development. In Wamboye, E. and Fayissa, B. (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Africa’s Economic Sectors. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

JOURNALS

Leal Filho, W., Barbir, J., Venkatesan, M., Lange Salvia, A., Dobri, A., Bošković, N., Eustachio, J. H. P. P., Ingram, I., & Dinis, M. A. P. (2025). Policy Gaps and Opportunities in Bio-Based Plastics: Implications for Sustainable Food Packaging. Foods, 14(11), 1955. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14111955

Venkatesan, M., Liang, W., Muftu, E., Sharma, I. & Rumenser, D. (2023): Addressing race in economics: Teaching to Transgress, Contemporary Justice Review, DOI: 10.1080/10282580.2023.2181288

Venkatesan, M., Alper, N., Baker, A., Bernard, S., Lichtenthal, P., Murphy, K., Peterson, J., Radueva, & Simon, A. (2023) Designing engagement: a student-based perspective of the economics of crime, Contemporary Justice Review, DOI: 10.1080/10282580.2023.2181289

Filho, W. L., Salvia, A. L., Ulluwishewa, R., Abubakar, I. R., Mifsud, M., LeVasseur, T. J., Correia, V., Consorte-McCrea, A., Paço, A., Fritzen, B., Ray, S., Gordon, N., Luetz, J. M., Borsari, B.,Venkatesan, M., Mukul, S. A., Carp, R. M., Begum, H., Nunoo, E. K., Muthu, N., Sivapalan, S., Cichos, K., & Farrugia, E. (2023). Linking sustainability and spirituality: A preliminary assessment in pursuit of a sustainable and ethically correct world. Journal of Cleaner Production, 380(2) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135091.

Filho, W. L., Eustachio, J., Dinis, M., Sharifi, A., Venkatesan, M., Donkor, F., Doni, F., Rimi, I., Cichos, A. & Vargas-Hernández, J. (2022). Transient poverty in a sustainable development context. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, DOI: 10.1080/13504509.2022.2029612

Venkatesan, M. & Bernal, R. (2021). Race, Poverty, and COVID-19. Sustainability and Climate Change. 14(3), 145-150.

Community & Professional Leadership

Professional Associations:

Editor in Chief, Sustainability and Climate Change (Sage)
Book Review Editor: Journal of International Women’s Studies(2017-2024)
Special Issue Editor, Economics and Gender (2021): Journal of International Women’s Studies
Special Issue Editor, World Conference on Women’s Studies (2019 and 2018): Journal of International Women’s Studies