Ben Hood is the Founder and Chief Product Officer at WattBuy, an energy intelligence
platform that gives personalized recommendations to homeowners for solar panels, batteries,
and electricity plans, in order to save money and help the environment. He has been
a software product manager for more than a dozen years, working at technology companies
Apple, Endgame, Metabiota, and Aol. As a part of the diplomatic community, he has
lived in Washington, DC, Warsaw, Poland, and Istanbul, Turkey, where he was the economics
associate in charge of entrepreneurship, business and finance at the US Consulate.
Prior to working in technology, Ben studied astrophysics, and earned his Ph.D. from
the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, where he was a Marshall scholar and studied
and simulated extrasolar planets. At the University of Arkansas, Ben was a Bodenhamer
Fellow and graduated summa cum laude with dual degrees in computer engineering and
physics. Ben and his wife Courtney currently live in the Washington DC area, with
their three daughters, Lillian, Margaret, and Caraway.