Dr. Akil Rao Chief Economist: Rational Futures Contact 301 Sparkman DriveHuntsville, AL 35899 Campus Map Biography Dr. Rao is a Partner and Principal Economist at Rational Futures, a research and advisory firm that helps clients identify and actualize transformative opportunities in advanced technology sectors. His career has spanned government, academia, and industry. He served as acting Chief Economist in NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, where he led agency-level market assessment, technoeconomic concept development, and benefit-cost analysis. He was an economics professor at Middlebury College, where he taught courses in quantitative methods and applied resource and industrial economics, and led data science at Red9 Corporation, a technology startup focused on wearable motion sensors and machine learning. Dr. Rao holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of California, Riverside and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Colorado Boulder.