Benjamin F. Hobbs earned a Ph.D. (Environmental Systems Engineering) in 1983 from Cornell University. He holds the Theodore M. and Kay W. Schad Chair of Environmental Management at the Johns Hopkins University, where he has been in the Department of Geography & Environmental Engineering (now Environmental Health & Engineering) since 1995. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Applied Mathematics & Statistics, and is founding director of the JHU Environment, Energy, Sustainability & Health Institute, and codirects the Yale-JHU Solutions for Energy, Air, Climate, and Health (SEARCH). Previously, he was at Brookhaven and Oak Ridge National Laboratories and a member of the Systems Engineering and Civil Engineering faculty at Case Western Reserve University.

His research and teaching concerns the application of systems analysis and economics to electric utility regulation, planning, and operations, as well as environmental and water resources systems. Dr. Hobbs has previously held visiting appointments at CalTech, Comillas Pontifical University, Helsinki University of Technology, University of Washington, Netherlands Energy Research Center, and Cambridge University. He chairs the Market Surveillance Committee of the California Independent System Operator. He was named a NSF Presidential Young Investigator in 1986. Dr. Hobbs is a Fellow of the IEEE and INFORMS.