Skip to content
View Lesterhau's full-sized avatar
🎯
Focusing
🎯
Focusing

Block or report Lesterhau

Block user

Prevent this user from interacting with your repositories and sending you notifications. Learn more about blocking users.

You must be logged in to block users.

Maximum 250 characters. Please don’t include any personal information such as legal names or email addresses. Markdown is supported. This note will only be visible to you.
Report abuse

Contact GitHub support about this user’s behavior. Learn more about reporting abuse.

Report abuse
Lesterhau/README.md

Ryan Lester

Economist · Futurist · Applied Researcher · Essayist

B.S. Economics · University of Houston, 2026 M.S. Foresight · University of Houston, Fall 2026 22-year U.S. Navy Veteran · Houston, TX

ORCID Substack LinkedIn Harvard Dataverse


I work at the intersection of behavioral economics, urban systems, and applied foresight. My research gets peer-reviewed. My code gets deployed. My essays get read by people who then text me things like "damn, that's me."

Three papers on SSRN. One under journal review. Building a hyperlocal social app for Houston and a foresight intelligence tool. Starting an M.S. in Futures Studies in Fall 2026.

"The research question I keep returning to: what happens to human decision-making when systems fail slowly enough that we adapt to them?"


🔬 Research

All papers available on SSRN. Data publicly archived on Harvard Dataverse.

Paper Venue Status Data
Rational Foreclosure: A Stochastic Reference Point Model of Aspirational Abandonment under Positional Drift Theoretical Economics 🔄 Under Review DOI
The Regime Boundaries of AI-Amplified Research: Task Complementarity, Physical Validation, and the Limits of Semi-Endogenous Growth Journal of Economic Growth · BUPA submission pending ✅ SSRN Posted DOI
Two Sectors, One Airspace: Workload, Complexity, and Safety in Air Traffic Control Journal of Air Transport Management 🔄 Under Review DOI

Methods used: Stochastic optimal stopping · Kőszegi-Rabin reference-dependence · BVP reformulation · Semi-endogenous growth theory · Leontief/CES task complementarity · O*NET digital task share proxies · Newey-West HAC regression · Reproducibility-bundled replication code

Key antecedents: Jones (1995) · Bloom et al. (2020) · Acemoglu & Restrepo (2018) · Kőszegi & Rabin (2006) · Vicky Henderson (2012) · Genicot & Ray (2017) · Gans (2025)


🛠 Projects

Things I'm actually building.

Stoop — Hyperlocal Social, Video-First

Neighborhood discovery for people who are tired of being algorithmically sorted into loneliness.

Fandom-level interest matching within proximity bands. No DMs. No groups. No events. Just the 100 people closest to you who care about the same things you do. Starting in Montrose, Houston.

React Native Proximity Matching Fandom Interests Horizontal Scroll No-DM Architecture


Roam — Waze for Hunting

Crowdsourced field intelligence for hunters who are tired of burning diesel on bad intel.

Parcel boundary overlays, offline mode, ArcGIS satellite tiles, crowdsourced field intel posts. Freemium: Scout (free) → Field Pass ($4.99/mo) → Landowner ($19.99/mo).

Leaflet.js ArcGIS Regrid API Supabase IndexedDB Offline-First


SwarmMind — AI-Native Foresight Intelligence

Structured scenario planning that doesn't require a PhD to run.

Integrates STEEP classification, Schwartz scenario planning, Three Horizons, Hines HAT axes, CLA, Spiral Dynamics, and Polak Future Image scoring into a single workflow. Built for foresight practitioners, policy analysts, and organizations that plan in years not quarters.

Foresight Scenario Planning STEEP Strategic Intelligence


TokenWater — Track the Water Cost of AI

100ml per 1,000 tokens. Across 20 platforms. Now you know.

Cross-platform AI water consumption tracker. Converts token usage to water cost equivalent. Open source, MIT licensed.

HTML JavaScript AI Ethics Environmental Accountability


✍️ Writing

Essays at RLPerspectives.com — the Greenlight voice. Confessional before analytical. Structurally chaotic in the way that things that are actually true tend to be.


🧰 Methods & Tools

wakatime

Ryan's GitHub stats

Python R JavaScript HTML5 Leaflet Supabase

Research: Stata · R (lmtest, sandwich, survival) · Python (pandas, numpy, scipy) · Harvard Dataverse · SSRN

Foresight: Schwartz Scenario Planning · CLA · Three Horizons · Hines HAT · Polak Future Image

Writing: Substack · ORCID-linked publications · Open data archiving


📍 Background

22 years as a U.S. Navy Senior Chief — logistics, leadership, and systems-level problem solving at scale. Veteran-owned business (RL Perspectives, LLC). Population health minor, because economic models that ignore bodies are incomplete. Everest Base Camp, 2024. Houston by choice.


Currently accepting: research collaborations, policy consulting, and conversations that don't start with "let's circle back."

rslester@cougarnet.uh.edu · RLPerspectives.com

Pinned Loading

  1. rational-foreclosure rational-foreclosure Public

    Stochastic reference point model of aspirational abandonment under positional drift — behavioral economics working paper

    Python 1

  2. regime-boundaries regime-boundaries Public

    Task complementarity, physical validation, and the limits of semi-endogenous growth under AI amplification — working paper

    R 1

  3. stoop stoop Public

    Hyperlocal video-first social app — fandom-level interest matching within your closest 100 neighbors. Starting in Montrose, Houston.

    1

  4. swarmind swarmind Public

    AI-native foresight intelligence platform integrating Schwartz scenario planning, CLA, Three Horizons, STEEP, and swarm dynamics

    1

  5. tokenwater tokenwater Public

    Track the water cost of your AI token usage across 20 platforms

    HTML 1

  6. two-sectors-one-airspace two-sectors-one-airspace Public

    Workload, complexity, and safety in air traffic control — under review at Journal of Air Transport Management

    R 1