About Us
Launched in 2022, the Center for Climate and Health has the broad goal of fostering a diverse and vibrant community of researchers passionate about informing and minimizing the impacts of climate change on the health of people and communities. The Center is led by Dr. Gregory Wellenius and includes faculty, staff, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students from across the SPH and across the BU campus.
Mission (click to expand)
The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, urbanization and worsening air pollution are major contributing factors to the health burden of climate change. Members of the Center for Climate and Health are leaders in innovative and actionable climate and health research with a mission to reduce the health impacts from climate change, especially in our most vulnerable populations.
Using research produced within the School of Public Health and broader BU community, the Center for Climate and Health aids policy makers and supports adaptation and mitigation efforts through research translation and communication. The Center for Climate and Health divides our priorities across three areas: research, training, and translation, while promoting and facilitating collaboration across departments
Meet our Center faculty, staff, fellows, and students!
The Center for Climate and Health brings together exceptional members of the BU community with a diversity of expertise, talent, and resources.
Faculty (click to expand)
Gregory Wellenius, ScD, Director
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Dr. Wellenius serves as the CCH Director. Leveraging his training in epidemiology, environmental health, and human physiology, he leads research focused on assessing the human health impacts of the built environment in the context of a rapidly changing climate. |
Amelia Wesselink, PhD
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Dr. Wesselink is a Research Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, where she focuses on how environmental exposures influence reproductive and gynecologic health, with a specific focus on factors related to neighborhoods and climate change. |
Amruta Nori-Sarma, PhD
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Dr. Nori-Sarma is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Health Department, where she studies the relationship between environmental exposures associated with climate change and health outcomes in vulnerable communities.
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Clarissa Valim, MD, ScD
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Dr. Valim’s research focuses on the epidemiology and immunology of malaria, novel biomarkers to detect microcephaly, and other serious complications of the zika virus during pregnancy and inflammatory response patterns to determine the etiology of fever in young children.
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Ian Sue Wing, PhD
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Dr. Wing is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at BU. He conducts research on the economic analysis of energy and environmental policy, with an emphasis on climate change and computational general equilibrium (CGE) analysis of economic adjustment to policy and natural environmental shocks. |
Jonathan Buonocore, ScD
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Dr. Buonocore’s research evaluates the health impacts of energy systems, and modeling health “co-benefits” of climate mitigation strategies and energy policies, largely in the U.S. He recently joined the Environmental Health faculty as an Assistant Professor.
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Jonathan Jay, DrPH, JD
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Dr. Jay studies urban health, especially youth exposure to gun violence, as an assistant professor at BUSPH. He works at the intersection of data science and community health, focusing on the relationships of built environment, health, and safety risks. |
Jonathan Levy, ScD
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Dr. Levy focuses on assessment of urban environmental exposures and health risks. This includes high-resolution modeling to identify air pollution or temperature hot spots and address environmental justice concerns. His work emphasizes community-engaged research with an eye toward solutions. |
Kevin Lane, PhD, MA
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Dr. Lane’s research focus is in the fields of air pollution, the built environment, urbanization, and the impacts of climate change on health. His expertise in big-data and spatial research has generated novel methods that integrate GIS, remote sensing data and time-activity algorithms to improve exposure assessment and epidemiology.
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Lucy Hutyra, PhD
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Dr. Hutyra’s areas of specialization include urban climate and biogeochemistry, remote sensing, and vegetation ecology. Trained as a physical scientist, her research has become ever more focused on the climate and ecology of cities, working at the science-policy interface. |
Madeleine Scammell, DSc
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Dr. Scammell is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health with expertise is in the area of community-driven and community-based participatory research and includes the use of qualitative methods in the area of environmental health and epidemiological studies. |
Marcia Pescador Jimenez, PhD
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Dr. Pescador Jimenez is an Assistant Professor in the Epidemiology Department where she is currently examining the novel metrics of greenspace and the urban environment using Deep Learning Algorithms and Google Street View images. |
Mary Willis, PhD, MPH
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Dr. Willis’ expertise lies at the intersection of environmental epidemiology, spatial exposure assessment, and applied data science. She is particularly interested in how epidemiological studies can be best designed to inform health-protective policy decisions.
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M. Patricia Fabian, ScD
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Dr. Fabian conducts research and teaching focused on health and environmental health disparities in the built environment, and built the first systems science model linking housing, indoor air quality, energy use, and health.
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Nina Brooks, PhD
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Dr. Brooks’ research interests are in understanding the environmental and social determinants of health and generating evidence to inform climate and health policy, primarily in the Global South. Her current research is focused on implementing an energy efficiency intervention to reduce emissions and air pollution from the brick sector in Bangladesh and examines the relationships between heat stress, land-cover change, and maternal and child health. Dr. Brooks recently joined the Global Health faculty as an Assistant Professor. |
Patrick Kinney, ScD
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Dr. Kinney’s seminal work has showed how warming temperatures make air pollution like urban smog worse, and more harmful to populations. He also led the development of an integrated modeling system to predict the air pollution health effects of climate change into the future.
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Staff (click to expand)
Anthony (Yuantong) Sun, MS
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Anthony is a Research Data Analyst in the Environmental Health Department. He is conducting research on quantifying the health impacts of extreme heat in the U.S. population and is responsible for managing the research project of health benefits of PM2.5 regulations. |
Chad Milando, PhD, MS
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Dr. Milando is a Research Scientist in the Environmental Health Department. His research focuses on developing and using computational tools and analyses to investigate trends and sources of air pollution exposure, with a specific focus on vulnerable populations. |
Emma Gause, MS, MA
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Emma is a Research Scientist with the Center for Climate and Health. She employs epidemiologic and spatial methods to address research questions related to aviation-related air pollution, the health effects of heat, and firearm-related injuries. |
Jennifer Stowell, PhD, MPH
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Dr. Stowell is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Center for Climate and Health. She utilizes spatial and epidemiologic methods to examine the adverse effects of climate change on human health. Her continuing research is focused on expanding our understanding of extreme heat, prescribed fire, and wildfire smoke exposure on pregnancy and birth outcomes. |
Keith Spangler, PhD
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Dr. Spangler is a Research Scientist in the Environmental Health Department. He applies methods from geosciences and epidemiology to assess the impacts of climate change on human health and wellbeing. He is currently working to further improve exposure measurements of heat by developing novel datasets. |
Muskaan Khemani
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Muskaan is a Research Assistant with the Center for Climate & Health. She uses geospatial analysis and visualization to facilitate research on cumulative climate hazards, air pollution in India, and distributional health analyses. |
Zachary Popp, MPH
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Zach is a Research Data Analyst with the Center for Climate and Health. He derives climate hazard measures from a range of data sources and applies these exposures in environmental epidemiology modeling. His primary research interest includes the contributions of the built environment to disparities in climate impacts. |
Graduate Students (click to expand)
Katharine Teigen
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Katharine is an MPH student in the Environmental Health Department. She serves as the Center for Climate and Health Program Coordinator and conducts research on the mental health impacts of climate change with Dr. Amruta Nori-Sarma. She also co-leads the BUMC Climate Action Group. |
Laura Buckley, MPH
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Laura is a PhD candidate in Environmental Health with interests in assessing the health and equity implications of climate change and related mitigation efforts. She is particularly interested in how public health research can be used as a vehicle for change in achieving just energy transitions. |
Matthew Raifman, MPP
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Matthew is a PhD candidate in Environmental Health with an interest in examining the impact of local policies on climate and health co-benefits, specifically on the role of transportation and new mobility. His recent work looks at how local climate action plans can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollutants. |
Quinn Adams, MS
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Quinn is a PhD candidate in the Environmental Health at BUSPH, where she also received her MS in Climate and Health. She is interested in understanding the influence of climate change and extreme weather events on human health outcomes, with a particular interest in emerging infectious diseases and disease transmission. |
Yasmin Romitti
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Yasmin is a PhD candidate in the Earth and Environment Department at BU. She is interested in the intersection of climate impacts, energy, and health. Her work examines how urban populations adapt to increasing temperatures exposures and the associated the energy demand consequences and environmental disparities. |
