Environmental Health Scientist
WELCOME
I am an environmental health scientist studying the relationships between energy, air pollution, and health. I am interested in how and under what circumstances we can reduce our personal environmental exposures and to what extent this can lead to improved health.
I am an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego in the School of Public Health. Previously, I was a 2021-2023 Stanford Earth Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professor Marshall Burke as a part of the ECHO (Environmental Change and Human Outcomes) Lab. I am also a Senior Agents of Change Fellow. I was awarded my PhD by Department of Environmental Health Science at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, where I was advised by Professor Darby W. Jack, in July 2021. I received my BA in Environmental Studies from Yale University in 2015.
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Substantial investments have been made to encourage clean cooking among the nearly three billion people around the world still relying on burning biomass for daily household needs, but the impacts of these efforts on air pollution, health, and climate change are not yet clear. In my research, I aim to advance our knowledge of (1) the extent to which clean energy transitions will yield cleaner environments and improved health, and (2) under what circumstances we can expect to see health and environmental benefits from such transitions.
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Research Areas
I use a variety of approaches to study a range of environmental health problems. I aim to understand what determines personal environmental exposures, how they impact health, and to what extent we can reduce exposures to lead to healthier lives.
Climate and health benefits of induction stove promotion
Replacing gas stoves with induction powered by renewables could achieve both climate and health benefits.
Household transitions to clean cooking fuels: how, when, and why?
Displacing polluting cooking fuels with clean-burning fuels promises improved health and well-being. My research examines under what circumstances can these transitions take place in India, Ecuador, and elsewhere.
Improved under-5 health from a nationwide transition to LPG in Ecuador
We examine whether Ecuador's historical transition from households cooking with biomass to gas has reduced under-5 mortality.
Clean cookstove interventions to improve birth outcomes and infant health in Ghana
Evaluation of the effectiveness of cookstove interventions to improve birth outcomes and under-1 health by reducing air pollution exposure in rural Ghana.
Overlap and synergistic health impacts of wildfires and heat
Wildfires are a substantial and growing source of air pollution in the western US, and will increasingly coincide with elevated temperatures.
Measuring personal air pollution exposure and the contributions of cooking
Measuring personal air pollution exposure and the contributions of cooking is fundamental to understanding the potential for clean cooking to improve health.