Arjun Pillai Hausner

Arjun Pillai Hausner is an environmental scientist and sustainability practitioner pursuing a PhD in Environment and Resources through Stanford University’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. His research examines how food systems can support healthier, more equitable, and more environmentally sustainable communities and his current work maps food environments across the U.S.

Menu Atlas: Using AI to Map Restaurant Food, Nutrition, and Environmental Impact

Restaurant menus are an underused source of data for social science. This project, led by Arjun Pillai Hausner, was awarded a fast grant for AI-enabled research in 2026. It uses AI to turn millions of menus across the U.S. into structured data, identifying each dish and scoring its nutrition, health impact, and environmental footprint, to create the first public map of what food every American community is offered.