Elinor Benami

Elinor Benami is an **Assistant Professor** in the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department at Virginia Tech. She holds affiliations with the VT Remote Sensing & Global Change Center, the Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture, and Stanford’s RegLab. Her research focuses on environmental and development economics, leveraging satellite imagery and machine learning to enhance disaster financing and environmental compliance. She earned a B.A. from UNC Chapel Hill, a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and a postdoc at UC Davis.

**Research Interests**: Climate risk management, agricultural resilience, remote sensing applications, and policy design for sustainable agriculture. Current projects include NASA-funded work on Moroccan irrigation and drought financing, and evaluating U.S. environmental compliance using AI.

**Awards/Grants**: Led a $650K NASA Harvest grant, part of a $80M climate-smart agriculture initiative, and received the VT Early Career Scholarly Impact Award Nominee. Active in policy, including advising the EPA on environmental compliance algorithms.

**Teaching**: Courses include 'Remote Sensing in Social Sciences', 'Climate Risk Management', and 'Environmental and Sustainable Development Economics'. Mentors students at all levels, emphasizing computational skills and social impact.

**Affiliations**: NASA Harvest, VT Remote Sensing IGEP, and the Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. Collaborates with global institutions on drought financing and satellite data applications.