About

I am an applied microeconomist who studies how financial and policy instruments–as well as the informational infrastructure behind them–shape producer behavior, environmental outcomes, and the distribution of risk. I combine causal inference, field and natural experiments, and Earth-observation data to examine how novel sources of information improve public and private decisions, as well as how programs can be designed around their limitations.

My current work spans three strands: (1) how the data and contract design behind agricultural index insurance affect its value to policyholders and the public, as well as how enrollment responds to seasonal forecasts; (2) how public and private capital can finance the transition to sustainable land use, from evaluating a $54 million randomized conservation-payment program to assessing how conservation practices are capitalized into farmland values; and (3) how firms respond to information about regulatory compliance risk. Throughout, I work with researchers across disciplines, often partnering with the institutions responsible for deploying capital or governing market participation, including insurers, lenders, and government agencies.

Institutionally, I’m an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech in the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department, an ISCE Scholar with Virginia Tech’s Institute for Society, Culture and Environment, and a faculty affiliate of the VT Remote Sensing Graduate Education Group, the Global Change Center, and the Stanford RegLab. I co-lead the Agricultural Insurance & Finance impact area for NASA Harvest and RAAPID (Rapid Agricultural Assessments for Policy Impact and Decision-Making), a NASA Harvest spin-out focused on anticipating and responding to food crises. I also serve on the National Academies State of the Profession Panel for the 2028–2037 Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space (through December 2027) and on the Taylor Geospatial Institute’s Fields of the World User Advisory Group.

Previously, I was a postdoc in the Markets, Risk, and Resilience (MRR) Innovation Lab in the Agricultural and Resource Economics department at UC Davis, following my Ph.D. from the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford. Before grad school I was a research analyst at Climate Policy Initiative, after majoring in economics, with a minor in environmental studies, at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Full CV linked here (updated October 2026)

News & announcements

Publications

◆ = advisee (graduate student or postdoctoral scholar) at the time of the work  ·  * Joint first authors

1. Benami, E., Jo, N., Ragnauth, B., Ho, D.E. (2026). "Drop a Line, Submit on Time? Randomized Tailored Reminders Improve Pollution Reporting Timeliness." Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. [link] [SSRN preprint]
2. Michler, J.D., Josephson, A., Benami, E., Behrer, P., Cecil, M.J.◆, Gourlay, S., Heilmayr, R., Kirchner, E.◆, Maskell, G., Singh, K. (forthcoming, ~December 2026). "Treatment Geometry: Design Choices for Integrating Earth Observation and Socioeconomic Data." In Geospatial Impact Evaluation in Practice (eds. A. BenYishay & K. Singh).
3. Benami, E., Cecil, M.◆, Josephson, A., Maskell, G., Michler, J. (forthcoming, ~December 2026). "Integrating Weather and Land Cover Data into Geospatial Impact Evaluations." In Geospatial Impact Evaluation in Practice (eds. A. BenYishay & K. Singh).
4. D'Agostino, A., Usmani, F., Benami, E. (forthcoming, ~December 2026). "Causal Inference and Counterfactuals in Earth Observation Research." In Geospatial Impact Evaluation in Practice (eds. A. BenYishay & K. Singh).
5. Kirchner, E.*◆, Benami, E.*, Hobbs, A.W., Carter, M.R., Jin, Z. (2026). "Get in the Zone: The Risk-Adjusted Welfare Effects of Data-Driven vs. Administrative Borders for Index Insurance Zones." Journal of Development Economics 180: 103658. *Joint first authors. [link] [Virginia Tech News] [NASA Harvest News]
6. Benami, E., Carroll, A.◆, Messer, K.D., Zhang, W., Cecil, M.◆ (2025). "Seeding Change: Growing Insights from Four Programs to Support Climate-Resilient Soil and Water Conservation in US Agriculture." Agricultural Economics 56(3): 457-473. [link] [CBEAR brief]
7. Saunders, A.◆, Tellman, B., Benami, E., Anchukaitis, K., Hossain, S., Bennett, A., Islam, A.K.M.S., Giezendanner, J. (2025). "Sensitivity to Data Choice for Index-Based Flood Insurance." Earth's Future 13(9). [link] [University of Arizona News]
8. Benami, E., Ramanujan, R.◆, Cecil, M.J.◆ (2025). "Rain Check: How Data Details Influence Payout Determinations in a U.S. Rainfall Index Insurance Program." Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 54(3): 687-704. [link] [Virginia Tech News]
9. Lin, C., Zhou, J., Yin, L., Bouabid, R., Mulla, D., Benami, E., Jin, Z. (2024). "Sub-National Scale Mapping of Individual Olive Trees Integrating Earth Observation and Deep Learning." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 217: 18-31. [link]
10. Fisher, C., Benami, E., Dolk, M., Baldwin, J., Becker-Reshef, I., Cuppari, R.I., Dalhaus, T., Hobbs, A., Leckebusch, G., Lacovara, P., Sobel, A.H., Tellman, B. (2024). "Bridging Science and Practice to En(in)sure Resilience in a Changing Climate." Journal of Catastrophe Risk and Resilience 2(1). [link]
11. Benami, E., Carter, M.R. (2021). "Can Digital Technologies Reshape Rural Microfinance? Implications for Savings, Credit, & Insurance." Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 43(4): 1196-1220. [link] [UC Davis News] [AAEA]
12. Benami, E.*, Jin, Z.*, Carter, M.R., Kenduiywo, B., Ghosh, A., Hobbs, A.W., Hijmans, R., Lobell, D. (2021). "Uniting Remote Sensing, Crop Modelling, and Economics for Agricultural Risk Management." Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 2: 140-159. *Joint first authors. [link] [EurekAlert] [Twitter/X thread summary]
13. Benami, E., Whitaker, R., La, V., Lin, H., Anderson, B., Ho, D.E. (2021). "The Distributive Effects of Risk Prediction in Environmental Compliance: Algorithmic Design, Environmental Justice, and Public Policy." Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT): 90-105. [link] [Stanford News]
14. Hino, M.*, Benami, E.*, Brooks, N. (2018). "Machine Learning for Environmental Monitoring." Nature Sustainability 1(10): 583-588. *Joint first authors. [link] [Stanford News]
15. Benami, E., Curran, L.M., Cochrane, M., Venturieri, A., Moraes Franco, R., Kneipp, J., Swartos, A. (2018). "Oil Palm Land Conversion in Pará, Brazil, from 2006-2014: Evaluating the 2010 Brazilian Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program." Environmental Research Letters 13(3): 034037. [link] [Mongabay]
16. Carley, S., Lawrence, S., Brown, A., Nourafshan, A., Benami, E. (2011). "Energy-Based Economic Development." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 15(1): 282-295.

Working papers

1. Benami, E., Kirchner, E.◆, Rejesus, R., Chen, Z. (in prep). "From Practices to Prices: Cover Crops, Tillage, and Land Values Across Regions and Scales."
2. Carroll, A.◆, Benami, E., Cecil, M.J.◆ (in prep). "Forecasts and Adverse Selection in Index Insurance."
3. Cecil, M.J.◆, Benami, E., Carroll, A.◆, Yu, J., Ifft, J. (under review). "Rainfall Index Insurance Under Exceptional Drought: Payout Alignment and Producer Response."
4. Benami, E., Carroll, A.◆, Messer, K. (in prep). "How and Where Do Financial Incentives Promote Adoption of Conservation (Regenerative) Agricultural Practices? A $54 Million Experiment Among US Producers."
5. Poghosyan, A.◆, Benami, E., Brunelin, S., Ng, O. (revise and resubmit, Journal of Development Studies). "Measures and Mediators of Drought-Related Household Vulnerability to Poverty in Niger."
6. Benami, E., Becker-Reshef, I., Kirchner, E.◆, Cecil, M.J.◆, Chautems, M. (in prep). "Opportunities for EO to Help Derisk the Transition to Sustainable Agricultural Systems."

Reports & other publications

1. Cecil, M.◆, Kirchner, E.◆, Benami, E., Sahajpal, R., Franch, B., Kalecinski, N., Moletto-Lobos, I., Sadeh, Y., Justice, C. (2026). "How to Choose Between NASA Harvest Crop Yield Models." NASA Harvest. [link]
2. Becker-Reshef, I., Whitcraft, A., Justice, C., Benami, E., Humber, M., Rejesus, R. (2026). Public Comment in Response to USDA Request for Information on Opportunities, Challenges, and Emerging Areas in Statistical Data, Analysis, and Research, with NASA Harvest/Acres. [link]
3. Benami, E., Messer, K.D. (2026). "Enrollment Isn’t Impact: Designing Conservation Programs to Improve Contract Completion." CBEAR (Center for Behavioral and Experimental Agri-Environmental Research) Behavioral Insight Brief. [link]
4. Rodolfa, K., Ho, D.E., Honigsberg, C., Benami, E. (2023). Public Comment on U.S. EPA's Draft National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives for Fiscal Years 2024-2027. [link] [pdf]
5. Benami, E., Ho, D.E., McDonough, A. (2020). "Innovations for Environmental Compliance: Emerging Evidence and Opportunities." Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research Policy Brief. [link]
6. Zuckerman, J., Deason, J., Benami, E. (2013). "Targeting Proposition 39 to Help California's Schools Save Energy and Money." Climate Policy Initiative.
7. Pierpont, B., Varadarajan, U., Hobbs, A., Benami, E. (2013). "Improving Solar Policy: Lessons from the Solar Leasing Boom in California." Climate Policy Initiative.

Teaching

Full course descriptions, syllabi, and guidance for students (including requesting reference letters) are on my Teaching & Mentoring page.

• Remote Sensing in the Social Sciences — graduate course, instructor of record (Fall 2021, 2022, 2024, 2026). How remotely sensed data is and can be appropriately used in social science research, with a focus on readings in environment, agriculture, and economic development and hands-on lab exercises with cloud-based geospatial platforms.
• Climate Risk Management — upper-level undergraduate course, instructor of record (Fall 2023). The science and economics of extreme weather and climate change; how we detect shifting weather patterns, their implications for society, and policy options to manage the risks.
• Environmental Economic Analysis & Management (AAEC 4314) — upper-level undergraduate course, instructor of record (Spring 2027, new). Quantitative methods and computer-aided tools for analyzing environmental problems and evaluating management and policy options; the capstone analysis course for the Environmental Economics minor.
• Environmental & Sustainable Development Economics — undergraduate course, instructor of record (Spring 2021, 2022). How approaches from economics can help society weigh policy questions relating to pollution and sustainable development; how environmental problems and policies vary between developing and developed country contexts.

Prior experience

• The Economics of Index Insurance — co-instructor, short course for remote-sensing specialists (Nairobi, Kenya, Summer 2019). An applied short course on the design, pricing, and evaluation of agricultural index insurance for managing risk - for pracitioners.
• World Food Economy (ECON/ESS 106/206) — teaching assistant, Stanford University (undergraduate and graduate). The economics of global food production, agricultural markets, hunger, and food and environmental policy.
• Environmental Governance (ENVRES 250) — teaching assistant, Stanford University (undergraduate). Seminar on governing shared, common-pool resources (fisheries, forests, and water), and the human behaviors and institutions that shape environmental outcomes in socio-environmental systems.
• Energy in Transition: De-Carbonizing America — teaching assistant, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (honors undergraduate seminar). The policies, technologies, and economics of the U.S. transition to lower-carbon energy.

HECTARE Lab

The HECTARE Lab (Human Environment CompuTing and Agricultural REsearch Lab) brings together students and scholars engaged at the intersection of economics and data science related to issues affecting humans, agriculture, and the environment. We meet ~weekly during the academic year to present and get feedback on ongoing research as well as discuss issues and skills of common interest.

Postdoctoral scholars

• Yingchen Xu — VT Agricultural & Applied Economics (2026–present); PhD, Food and Resource Economics, University of Florida; previously postdoc, Columbia University
• Michael J. Cecil — University of Maryland, Geographical Sciences / NASA Harvest (2024–present)

Graduate students

• Anne Bell Carroll — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics (expected ~2029)
• Alex Saunders — PhD, Geography, Development & Environment, University of Arizona (expected ~2027)
• Ivy (Shengke) Wang — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics (expected ~2031)

Additional Advisees

• Matthew Mair — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics (expected May 2028)
• Yi-Tien Lu — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics (expected May 2029)
• Nitheshnirmal Sadhasivam — PhD, Geosciences (expected May 2027)

Alumni/ae

Current and former advisees, as well as their last known position:

• Ella Kirchner — Postdoctoral scholar, VT Agricultural & Applied Economics; VT Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow / NASA Harvest, 2024–2026: Assistant Professor of Business Economics, Wageningen University
• Yuetong Zhang — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics, 2025 (committee): postdoc, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Department of Public Policy, Data-Driven Envirolab
• Armine Poghosyan — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics, 2024 (co-advised): assistant professor, Tennessee State University
• Ramaraja Ramanujan — MS, Computer Science, 2024 (co-advised): Microsoft
• Kristen Swedberg — PhD, Agricultural & Applied Economics, 2024 (committee): PRODiG+ Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at Binghamton University
• Maguette Sembene — MS, Agricultural & Applied Economics, 2023 (committee): PhD Student, Virginia Tech Agricultural & Applied Economics
• Riley Rudd — Data Science for the Public Good mentee & Undergrad Research Assistant: Data Engineer, MITRE
• Ari Liverpool — Undergrad Research Assistant: Business Analyst, Capital One