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Nathan Geldner
Nathan Geldner
Institution
Purdue University: Industrial Engineering
Introduction
Hi. I'm Nathan. Once upon a time I fell in love with mathematics, not because I love solving equations or proving theorems but because of the breadth of applications of not just mathematics in general but individual mathematical concepts. How the spread of heat through a network of pipes can follow the same principles as neuron activation in your brain, cascading outages on the power grid, the transmission of contagious diseases and the adoption of new ideas. My main focus these days is coming up with better statistical methods to understand flood risk and other natural hazards, and using those methods to support decision-making processes to protect communities from them. The state of the science there is, uh, alarmingly far behind where you'd expect it to be. That said, I consider myself a generalist, and I've dabbled with economics, policy analysis, ecological modeling, machine learning, stochastic optimization, and environmental health. And I've had a couple projects in the queue for a while on the stochastic dynamics of e-sports rankings and applying machine learning towards saber-metrics style analysis of e-sports gameplay and strategy. In my personal life I enjoy video games, hiking, reading scifi and fantasy novels, cooking, political activism, getting super technical and specific with tea and coffee, and eating as many different and interesting kinds of food as I can.
Top Fields
Interdisciplinary / Emerging Fields, Computer Science, Earth & Environmental Science
Research Areas
This mentor can support projects involving statistics, AI/ML, general equilibrium modeling in economics, decision theory, and probabilistic modeling. They are especially comfortable with interdisciplinary applications of decision theory, statistical modeling, and stochastic process modeling for long-term policymaking or decision support.
Background
Nathan’s research focuses heavily on probabilistic compound flood hazard analysis, flood risk mitigation, natural hazards modeling, agricultural and environmental policy, environmental exposure, and decision methods for risk reduction. His work includes manuscripts and publications on tropical cyclone rainfall generators, design-event methods for multi-mechanism flood modeling, AI-driven fossil fuel productivity and emissions, compound flood transition zones, stochastic ecohydrological modeling, coastal risk models, storm selection methods, and levee design frameworks.
He has contributed to journal articles, technical reports, preprints, invited chapters, and conference presentations for venues and organizations including Water Resources Research, NPJ Climate Action, Springer, Louisiana Watershed Initiative, Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, Journal of Flood Risk Management, Annual Review of Resource Economics, Environmental Research, Environmental Science & Technology, AGU Fall Meeting, and the International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering.
Manuscript in preparation demonstrating fundamental flaws in the tropical cyclone rainfall gen-
erator in active use across Louisiana and Jacksonville, with direct implications for future flood pro-
tection capital investment. Targeting Water Resources Research.
• Manuscript in preparation demonstrating analytical incoherence in standard methods for design
events in multi-mechanism flood modeling with widespread implications for mitigation investment;
findings presented at AGU Fall Meeting, 2025.
• Manuscript in Review: Co-authored cross-disciplinary analysis quantifying CO2 emissions enabled
by AI-driven fossil fuel productivity gains using general equilibrium modeling; submitted to NPJ
Climate Action (Nature Portfolio), 2025.
Contemporary Methods for Probabilistic Compound Flood Hazard Analysis. Invited chapter, Tropical
Cyclone Risk in a Changing Climate (Springer, in press), 2025.
AJ Dewar, NB Geldner, DR Johnson
• Competing pathways: how AI enables more emissions than it avoids in energy systems. NPJ Climate
Action (Nature Portfolio, in review), 2025.
W Alpine, N Geldner, H Alpine, M Chepeliev
• Quantifying Compound Flood Risk and Transition Zones via an Extended Joint Probability Method.
submitted to Water Resources Research , 2025.
MS Bartlett, N Geldner, Z Cobell, L Partida, O Diaz, DR Johnson, et al.
• Stochastic ecohydrological perspective on semi-distributed rainfall-runoff dynamics. Water Resources
Research, 2025.
MS Bartlett, E Cultra, N Geldner, A Porporato
• Compound flood transition zone pilot study for the Amite River Basin. Louisiana Watershed Initiative
(technical report), 2023.
MS Bartlett, S Misra, H Roberts, NB Geldner, B McMann, A Saharia, S Zou, DR Johnson, G Villarini, H Kim,
B Yuill, Y Wang, I Georgiou, J Fischbach, N Nadal-Caraballo, L Schmied
• Reducing US Biofuels Requirements Mitigates Short-term Impacts of Global Population and Income
Growth on Agricultural Environmental Outcomes. Energy Policy, 2023
DR Johnson, NB Geldner, J Liu, UL Baldos, T Hertel
• Efficient flood risk mitigation and intersectional equity implications: A case study in New Orleans.
(preprint), 2023
N Geldner, D Johnson, J Doss-Gollin, K Keller
• Applied Joint Probabilistic Modeling of Compound Coastal Flood Hazard: An Extension of the Joint
Probability Method with Optimal Sampling. Presented at 14th International Conference on Applications
of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering, 2023
NB Geldner, DR Johnson
• Alternative Risk Metrics to Evaluate Tradeoffs between Efficiency and Equity of Risk Reduction. Pre-
sented at 14th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineer-
ing, 2023
DR Johnson, NB Geldner
• Coastal Master Plan: Attachment B4: Storm Selection for the ICM. Coastal Protection and Restoration
Agency (techincal report), 2023
D Johnson, N Geldner
• Coastal master plan: Attachment c11: 2023 risk model. Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency
(techincal report), 2023
D Johnson, J Fischbach, N Geldner, M Wilson, C Story, J Wang
• 2023 Coastal Master Plan: Model Improvement Report, Risk Assessment. Louisiana Coastal Protection
and Restoration Authority (techincal report), 2023
JR Fischbach, DR Johnson, MT Wilson, NB Geldner, C Stelzner|
• Rapid, risk-based levee design framework for greater risk reduction at lower cost than standards-based design.
Journal of Flood Risk Management, 2022.
DR Johnson, J Wang, NB Geldner, AB Zehr
• Contemporary Decision Methods for Agricultural, Environmental, and Resource Management and Policy. Annual
Review of Resource Economics, 2019
DR Johnson & NB Geldner
• Ethylbenzene and styrene exposure in the United States: NHANES 2005–2012. Environmental Research, 2019.
KM Capella, K Roland, NB Geldner, BR de Castro, et al.
• Nitromethane exposure from tobacco smoke and diet in the US population: NHANES, 2007–2012. Environmental
science & technology, 2019.
Michael F Espenship, Lalith K Silva, Mitchell M Smith, Kimberly M Capella, Christopher M Reese, Jonathan P
Rasio, Andrew M Woodford, Nathan B Geldner, B Rey deCastro, Víctor R De Jesús, Benjamin C Bloun