By Aman Azhar, Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images, Inside Climate News, June 8, 2022
As a professor and climate scientist in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Benjamin Zaitchik has found the perfect workshop: the rest of the city.
A Boston native, Zaitchik intended to work on desert plants and agriculture after his doctoral studies at Yale University, and started out in the Middle East, studying ecology and chasing after hurricane-induced landslides to understand extreme events, such as heat waves. Political instability put an end to all that.
Now, with a focus on atmospheric modeling and climate analysis, he studies the impacts of extreme weather and opportunities to enhance resilience to these extremes, including those related to urban heat islands. He also serves as a member of the Baltimore Commission on Sustainability, and advises communities and city managers on mitigation strategies to beat back urban heat and other weather events, such as flash floods.
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