Elinor Benami

Elinor Benami was a 2023 PERC Lone Mountain fellow and an assistant professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on the social and environmental profile of producers and production systems, asking questions such as: How do we detect change in the foundational links of global supply chains, alleviate the welfare impacts of adverse weather shocks on rural producers, or predict risk of regulatory noncompliance among polluters?

Her current projects center on drought risk management, climate-smart agricultural adoption, and enhancing the environmental performance of facilities regulated under the Clean Water Act. Her work is done in collaboration with or funded by organizations including the World Bank, NASA, USDA, Stanford RegLab, and the EPA. Prior to VT, she had a postdoctoral appointment in the Markets, Risk, and Resilience (MRR) Innovation Lab of the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at U.C. Davis, following her Ph.D. from the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford.