Dr. Ben Oppenheim is an applied political economist with 14 years of experience in international development, security, and global health. He currently works as a senior Scientist at Metabiota. Working within the Product Development group, he leads the research, development, and production of risk analytic tools; his first product, a novel index measuring sovereign preparedness for pandemic disease outbreaks, is used by a leading global re-insurance company to design and price risk transfer policies.

Concurrently, Dr. Oppenheim is Senior Fellow and Visiting Scholar at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, researching international security, governance, health and development. He is currently studying how institutional capacity impacts infectious disease emergence and reporting, the role of rumors in conflict areas, and the impact of legal identity regimes on health outcomes in vulnerable populations. His work is published or forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Terrorism and Political Violence, the Journal of Development Studies, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He has conducted fieldwork in South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Latin America.

For over a decade Ben has consulted on international aid, capacity building, strategy, and learning and evaluation, with a focus on developing and conflict-affected countries. He has worked with a wide range of multilateral and philanthropic organizations, including the World Bank, United Nations, Open Society Foundations, Asia Foundation, the Fritz Institute, and the Institute for the Future, and has been a lead author on several flagship reports for international aid organizations.

Ben received his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, where he held a Simpson Fellowship, and earned an MSc from the London School of Economics, and his BA from Wesleyan University's College of Social Studies.