Innovation Hub Faculty Ambassador

Balaji Rao, Ph.D.

Dr. Balaji Rao is currently a research scientist and teaching instructor at the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering (CECE) in Texas Tech University. Dr. Rao research areas are focused on mitigation environmental pollution and sustainability in water resource management. He is also the co-founder of startup- Envirostatus, LLC - that was initiated with generous funds from the Innovation Hub. Envirostatus offers pollution management solutions with particular focus on providing environmental sampling and modeling services to a variety of customer segments, including environmental consultancies, energy companies, and government agencies. Dr. Rao has keen interest in instilling entrepreneurial spirit among CECE students by incorporating a business course in their engineering curriculum with the goal to broaden their societal impact.