Ben Rachunok is a postdoctoral researcher in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford University in the Fletcher Lab. His research focuses on integrating environmental justice and engineering principles to create climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies which justly benefit all populations. Currently, he is working to develop tools and management policies to enable low-cost water supply planning that is resilient to droughts and enables access to affordable water for all communities. Much of Ben and his colleagues’ work revolves around ensuring that decisions made by water providers and utilities to mitigate drought impacts respect every human’s right to safe, affordable, drinking water.

Prior to joining Stanford, Ben made a number of contributions utilizing data science to study critical infrastructure. Notably, developing data scientific tools which utilize real-time social media data to quantify how communities are impacted by climate change and natural hazards. His work has been featured by Tech Crunch, Gizmodo, Yahoo! Finance, The Huffington Post and the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction. Ben was an R&D Intern at the Center for Computing Research at Sandia National Labs. He received his BS in Industrial & Systems Engineering from North Carolina State University, and holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University where he was a recipient of the Lee Chaden Scholarship and Estus H. and Vashti L. Magoon Award.