Prior to starting his doctoral studies in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, Benjamin studied geochemistry and philosophy at Washington University in Saint Louis. While there, he gained an interest in climate science from working on a project reconstructing the climate of the high Peruvian Andes from lake sediment cores. Outside of his graduate research, he has been active in the scientific community organizing student-based conferences and workshops, such as the Graduate Climate Conference (GCC) in Woods Hole, MA and the Summer School on Speleothem Science (S4) in São Paulo, Brazil.
Benjamin is passionate about science education and has taught introductory climate science classes to local high school students through the MIT ESP Splash program. Over the past few years, he has also been a teaching assistant for MIT’s Terrascope learning community.