Francisco Alpízar is the Chair and Professor of the Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Group at the Department of Social Sciences in Wageningen University and Research. Before that, he was a senior research fellow at the Economics and Environment for Development Research Program at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), a leading multilateral research institute based in Costa Rica. In 2005, he founded and directed the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program. 

His research explores incentive-based approaches to improve private and public management of natural resources. He draws on basic concepts and methodologies from environmental, development and behavioral economics to examine individual decisions and their role in achieving higher social welfare.