McGill.CA / Bioresource Engineering / Faculty and Staff / Academic Staff

Benjamin Goldstein

Benjamin Goldstein, Bioresource Engineering, McGill University

Assistant Professor

T: 514-398-7809  |  ben.goldstein [at] mcgill.ca (Email)  |   Macdonald-Stewart Building, MS1-093  |  Website |  LinkedIn

Degrees

BASc University of Toronto
MSc, PhD Technical University of Denmark

Short Bio

Benjamin is Assistant Professor of Bioresource Engineering and head of the Sustainable Urban-Rural Futures (SURF) lab at McGill. He is interested in understanding how the consumption of materials and energy in cities produce environmental change inside and outside cities. He develops methods and tools to quantify the scale of these changes and the locations where they occur using life cycle assessment, input-output analysis, and geospatial data. Benjamin is particularly interested in combining quantitative methods with theory rooted in social science to explore multiple dimensions of sustainability and address issues of distributive justice. His topical foci include urban food systems (esp. urban agriculture), agri-commodities, residual resource engineering, global supply chains, sustainable production and consumption, and energy systems.

Awards and Recognitions

Young Research Award 2017 (Technical University of Denmark, Department of Management Engineering)

Active Affiliations

American Association of Geographers
International Society for Industrial Ecology

Research Interests

Benjamin is interested in how we can make cities greener. He uses big data and models to put numbers on the environmental impacts of urban lifestyles. For example, he might look at meat consumption in different neighborhoods of a city to estimate the amount of climate changing gasses, such as methane from cows, result from the city’s meat consumption. Benjamin is also interested in revealing how consumption in cities can produce negative environmental change beyond the city borders and impact the livelihoods of distant peoples. His work focuses on agricultural systems and forestry products.

By better understanding where our products come from and how they are made, we gain insights into how to produce and consume more sustainably.

Current Research

The FEW- Meter: Project with EU and US partners to holistically assess the sustainability of urban farming. We analyze 100 urban farms to understand their resource use, food outputs, environmental impacts, and social benefits. Funding: Belmont Forum/NSF.

Carbon Inequality of Household Energy: Project with University of Michigan. Big data analysis of the carbon emissions from residential energy use in the United States. Probabilistic models of energy use at the individual household level, combined with geodemographic information to reveal drivers of consumption and emissions.

The Sustainability Hoofprint of Cities: Project with University of Michigan and University of Minnesota. Develops spatial life cycle assessment model of livestock production across the continental United States at the county level. Estimates consumption of beef, chicken, and pork for all counties and uses linear optimization to connect consuming counties to producing counties and explore distributional environmental justice issues.

Courses

BREE 210 Mechanical Analysis and Design 3 Credits
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 327 Bio-Environmental Engineering 3 Credits
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 485 Senior Undergraduate Seminar 1 1 Credits
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 486 Senior Undergrad. Seminar 2 1 Credits
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 651 Departmental Seminar M.Sc. 1 1 Credits
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 652 Departmental Seminar M.Sc. 2 1 Credits
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 751 Departmental Seminar Ph.D. 1
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 752 Departmental Seminar Ph.D. 2
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 753 Departmental Seminar Ph.D. 3
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer


BREE 754 Departmental Seminar Ph.D. 4
    Offered in the:
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Summer

Publications

View a list of current publications

 

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