Human Health and Community Resilience Track: Early-Career Research Fellowship

Cycle

2025 - Human Health and Community Resilience Track
2024 - Human Health and Community Resilience Track
2023 - Human Health and Community Resilience Track
2022 - Human Health and Community Resilience Track
2021 - Human Health and Community Resilience Track

Zongliang Yue

Dr. Zongliang Yue is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Health Outcomes Research and Policy at Auburn University’s Harrison College of Pharmacy and a research committee board member at AI@AU. He serves on the steering board of the MidSouth Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Society (MCBIOS) and holds editorial board positions with several journals, including JMIR Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, DNA and Cell Biology Reports, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, and Biology (MDPI). Dr. Yue specializes in healthcare data analytics, predictive artificial intelligence, and systems biology modeling, with a focus on harnessing big data to improve health outcomes. As the founder of the AI.pharm Lab, he leads interdisciplinary research at the intersection of environmental health, AI-powered modeling, and public health policy, aiming to design resilience-based interventions. His work advances predictive analytics for quantifying airborne environmental risks, modeling multi-layered exposure threats, and developing sustainable infrastructures for early-warning systems and risk stratification. Collaborating with environmental scientists, epidemiologists, and implementation science experts, Dr. Yue bridges computational modeling with clinical applications to inform equitable public health policies and guide resource allocation. His research prioritizes addressing cancer disparities in Gulf Coast communities that are disproportionately impacted by climaterelated health risks. He has authored 41 peer-reviewed publications and is the recipient of multiple honors, including the UAB Scientific Excellence Award and the MCBIOS Interdisciplinary Team Science Award. Dr. Yue earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship.

Zhihong Pang

Dr. Zhihong Pang is an Assistant Professor in the Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management at Louisiana State University. His research focuses on building energy efficiency, intelligent HVAC control, and the resilience of low-resource housing systems under climate stress, with a particular emphasis on the Gulf Coast region. He integrates building simulation, field sensing, and occupant behavior modeling to understand and improve the dynamic interactions among energy systems, environmental quality, and human well-being in aging and underserved housing stock. Dr. Pang’s work aims to support cost-effective retrofit strategies and adaptive control solutions that enhance energy performance while addressing health risks and climate resilience challenges. His research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and Louisiana State University. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Building Performance Simulation and Science and Technology for the Built Environment, and has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals spanning building science, energy systems, and environmental design. He received the Best Paper Award from Building Simulation in 2020and the Best Student Paper Award from the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) in 2021.Dr. Pang received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2022. He holds a B.S. in Built Environment and Energy Engineering from Tongji University in China.

Xilei Zhao

Dr. Xilei Zhao is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida, where she leads the Smart, Equitable, Resilient Mobility Systems (SERMOS) Lab. She received her M.S.E. in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2017. Her work focuses on developing and applying data and computational science methods to tackle challenging problems in resilience and transportation. She specializes in modeling human behavior in disasters, quantifying resilience for critical infrastructure systems, societal systems, communities, and modeling and planning for emerging travel modes (e.g., ridehailing and micromobility). Her work has been published in leading civil engineering journals, e.g., Transportation Research Part A, Part C & Part D, Automation in Construction, and Safety Science. She received the Travel Behaviour and Society Outstanding Paper Award 2020 for her paper entitled “Prediction and behavioral analysis of travel mode choice: A comparison of machine learning and logit models.” Her research has been supported by multiple funding agencies such as the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Zhao serves on the editorial board of Journal of Big Data Analytics in Transportation.

Siyu Yu

Dr. Siyu Yu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and a core faculty member with the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. Her experience spans land use, plan integration, and resilience issues in the United States, principally in the Gulf Coast region, as well as internationally in the Netherlands and Japan. Much of Dr. Yu’s current research focuses on the development, application, and extension of the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS) evaluation methodology. She aims to increase multi-hazard resilience and social equity in an era of climate change by investigating relationships among community networks of land use and development plans and policies vis-à-vis social and physical vulnerability to natural hazards. Her research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and has been published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Landscape and Urban Planning, and Sustainable Cities and Society, among others. Before arriving at Texas A&M, Yu worked as a Senior Urban Planner at the Urban Planning and Design Institute of Shenzhen, China. She holds a Master of Urban Planning and Design from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, an M.S. in Sustainable Design/Architecture from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science from Texas A&M University and is certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Simone Domingue

Dr. Simone Domingue is a Research Assistant Professor at Tulane University’s ByWater Institute. Domingue’s work engages sociological theories of environmental planning and governance, environmental justice, and co-production to chart a more equitable path toward climate and disaster resilience. She is currently collaborating with communities across coastal Louisiana on several grant-funded projects to co-develop empirically supported climate adaptation strategies that prioritize equity for historically marginalized and disproportionately impacted groups of people. Domingue’s research has been published in Earth Systems Governance, Environmental Justice, Environmental Sociology, and The American Review of Public Administration, among other outlets. She holds a BS in Food Science, Health Promotion, and Nutrition from Mississippi State University, an MS in Environmental Sciences from Louisiana State University, and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Shangjia Dong

Dr. Shangjia Dong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, a core faculty member of the Disaster Research Center, and a member of the Coastal Hazards, Equity, Economic Prosperity and Resilience (CHEER) Hub at the University of Delaware. His research revolves around understanding the complex dynamics between human and infrastructure systems during disasters. He aims to establish an algorithmic and theoretical framework to assess community resilience and equity, which can facilitate risk-informed decision-making for climate change adaptation, critical infrastructure protection, effective disaster preparedness and response, equitable resilience planning and operationalization, and smart operation and design of urban infrastructure. Dr. Dong takes an interdisciplinary research approach, drawing on models and insights from civil engineering, social science, public policy, urban planning, public health, and network science. His work has been published in leading interdisciplinary journals, such as Communications Earth & Environment (Nature), Reliability Engineering & System Safety, Risk Analysis, Sustainable Cities and Society, and Computer, Environment and Urban Systems. Dr. Dong received his B.S. in Information and Computation Science from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from Oregon State University, following which he completed post-doctoral research training in the Urban Resilience Lab at Texas A&M University.

Saeed Rokooei

Dr. Saeed Rokooei is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Building Construction Science at Mississippi State University with professional and academic experience in architecture and construction areas. His professional responsibilities include project planning and management as well as architectural design practice in private and public construction and engineering firms. He has taught in construction and engineering programs since 2006. Community resilience is at the core of Dr. Rokooei's research interests, alongside project management methodologies, engineering education, data analytics, creativity and innovation, and smart cities. Driven by a passion for empowering underrepresented groups in educational communities, he is actively developing innovative educational techniques and methods in construction and engineering. This focus helps prepare students to create stronger, more resilient communities, fostering a more sustainable and equitable future. Dr. Rokooei obtained his B.Arch. in Architectural Engineering and then continued his project and construction management studies. He completed his Ph.D. in Engineering (Construction) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his M.S. in Management Information Systems at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Ruijie Bian

Dr. Ruijie “Rebecca” Bian is a research assistant professor working at Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC). As the Center’s planning and multi-modal research manager, she focuses on supporting multi-modal transportation planning, design, and operation through research with the knowledge of transportation engineering and data science. Her enthusiasm and contributions in enhancing multi-modal transportation research, education, and outreach lead her to serve as a member of the Louisiana Complete Streets Advisory Council, which has 12 members in total advising the State in promoting multi-modal transportation. Dr. Bian is also well recognized by her research works in analyzing/modeling hurricane evacuation behavior and human mobilities in extreme weather. She has served as an active member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Standing Committee on Disaster Response, Emergency Evacuations, and Business Continuity (AMR 20) since she completed her Ph.D. study at Louisiana State University (LSU) in 2017. She is also the committee’s liaison with other TRB committees for joint research explorations and activity development: Standing Committee on Extreme Weather and Climate Change Adaptation (AMR 50) and Standing Committee on Community Resources and Impacts (AME 80). With this fellowship award, she will continue working towards her long-term career goal.

Renato Molina

Dr. Renato Molina is an Assistant Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, a Faculty Scholar at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami, and a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Natural Resources at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Chile. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics and a Master’s in Environmental Science and Management from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Renato implements multidisciplinary methods to quantify the direct and indirect costs associated with environmental and climate hazards such as hurricanes, storm surge, sea level rise, and flooding, as well as identify the benefits of alternative adaptation policies. Specifically, his work informs policies aimed at decreasing the negative social impacts of environmental hazards, pursuing environmentally sustainable adaptation strategies, and diminishing environmental injustice issues in disadvantaged communities. He is currently involved in projects studying the social value of hurricane forecasts, the implementation of nature-based solutions along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and the mechanics behind climate adaptation and climate gentrification.In addition to his academic work, Renato is actively involved in supporting activities for the private and public sectors in Latin America. His latest efforts relate to technical advice for fisheries reform, as well as technical training for fisheries managing agencies in Chile and Perú.

Natasha Malmin

Dr. Natasha Malmin is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Georgia State University’s School of Public Health. Prior to her doctoral studies, she served as a Health Scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA, where she conducted research on climate change, disaster preparedness, and public health. Dr. Malmin’s research examines federal disaster recovery and its distributive effects on social and health equity. Her work also explores participatory GIS mapping, postdisaster school recovery, long-term community resilience, maternal health in disaster contexts, and the intersection of governance, health systems, and disaster management. She also holds an M.P.H. in Global Environmental Health from Emory University and earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy as part of a joint program between the Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University.

Ming Xie

Dr. Ming Xie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency and Disaster Health Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on disaster preparedness, crisis communication, health equity, and climate resilience among vulnerable and marginalized communities, including refugee, immigrant, and low-income populations in rural and coastal areas. Dr. Ming uses community-based participatory research methods to examine how at-risk communities perceive and respond to public health and climate-related disasters. She works closely with local agencies and organizations to co-develop culturally competent preparedness plans, risk communication strategies, and policy recommendations. Her current projects include wildfire preparedness and behavioral response in the Texas Panhandle, neighborhood-level disaster planning in Southeast Baltimore County, and the role of digital activism in shaping public discourse around anti-AAPI hate and racial justice. She also investigates how nonprofits engage in social movements and advocate for systemic change. Through her research and teaching, Dr. Ming is dedicated to promoting inclusive disaster resilience and amplifying the voices of communities frequently excluded from emergency planning and decision-making processes. She holds dual Ph.D.s in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and in Public Administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Micah Hahn

Dr. Micah Hahn is an assistant professor of environmental health in the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). She received her joint Ph.D. in Epidemiology/Environment and Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her M.P.H. in Global Environmental Health from Emory University. Subsequently, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the CDC Climate and Health Program, and in this position worked collaboratively with the CDC Division of Vector-Borne Diseases and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change and working with communities to develop locally relevant adaptation and resilience-building strategies. She is trained as an epidemiologist and incorporates epidemiological study designs, spatiotemporal exposure assessment, GIS analysis, weather and climate data, ecological predictive modeling, and mixed methods to answer interdisciplinary, applied questions around climate-related exposures and human-animal-environment interactions. To address community needs, Dr. Hahn’s prior work has addressed vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, wildfires, air quality, food security, safe transportation, and energy use. Dr. Hahn is also actively engaged with the Municipality of Anchorage and other Alaskan communities at the intersection of science, policy, and community-based projects. She contributes to initiatives that directly support community resilience, by improving food security and facilitating community conversations around climate mitigation and adaptation, and she convenes a regional network of municipal climate leaders who are working to collaborate and scale their approaches to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Lei Zou

Dr. Lei Zou is an Assistant Professor (Associate Professor starting in Fall 2025) in the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University, where he leads the Geospatial Exploration and Resolution lab. His research aims to create a resilient, healthy, and sustainable future through responsible thinking, GeoAI, novel big data, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community outreach. Dr. Zou leads 20+ projects as PI/Co-PI, including spearheading a $1.5 million grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine as PI. He has published 80+articles in influential journals, conferences, and books. Dr. Zou has received several prestigious awards, including the 2025 Emerging Scholar Award from the Spatial Analysis and Modeling Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and the Global Young Scientist Award at the 2022 World Geospatial Developers Conference. He is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of scientists and professionals by advising seven Ph.D. students, two M.S. students, and several undergraduates. Many of his doctoral students have secured faculty positions at top-tier universities. He serves as the vice chair of the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on Geospatial Analysis and Modeling, the 2024-2025 chair of AAG’s Geographic Information Sciences & Systems Group, a board director of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, and an editorial board member of the International Journal of Digital Earth and Cartography and Geographic Information Science. Dr. Zou holds a B.E. from Wuhan University, an M.S. in Cartography and GIScience from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Louisiana State University.

Lauren Spearing

Dr. Lauryn Spearing is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on improving people’s quality of life by increasing the level of service received from the built environment and ensuring?access to critical infrastructure systems. Dr. Spearing’s research interests include infrastructure system management during disasters and understanding sociotechnical water challenges. She uses systems thinking approaches, involving both qualitative and quantitative methods to understand complex problems at the intersection of technical, social, and natural systems. She uses research to tackle relevant societal issues and to advocate for policy changes that benefit underserved communities. Dr. Spearing’s work has explored water access in rural Alaska, community resilience to disasters in Texas, and the cascading impacts of disaster displacement. Currently, her research group is studying public perceptions during the water crises in Jackson, Mississippi. Dr. Spearing is an active member of the American Society of Civil Engineers Construction Research Congress. She earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. During her graduate studies, she was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

LaToya O'Neal

Dr. LaToya J. O’Neal is an Assistant Professor and Extension Health and Wellness Specialist in the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences at the University of Florida (UF). She also serves as State Program Leader for Health Extension at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Dr. O’Neal is an expert in community-based approaches to advance rural and minority health. Her research examines social, cultural, and environmental determinants of health behaviors, lifestyle-related conditions, and comorbidities among health disparities populations. She currently works with communities to develop, test, and evaluate the effectiveness of tailored, multilevel interventions designed to increase community capacity to support optimal health. Dr. O’Neal’s Rural HEALTH program has won numerous national, regional, and state awards for excellence in research and community partnerships. She aims to build upon her current work in coastal communities by examining the role of environmental health and severe weather events on community resilience and community health. Dr. O’Neal earned her BA in Psychology from Tougaloo College, her MA in Counseling Psychology from Assumption University, and her PhD in Medical Sociology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Kristin Nielsen

Dr. Kristin Nielsen is an assistant professor of aquatic toxicology in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Texas at Austin. She uses a One Health approach to investigate the interactive effects of environmental contamination and climate change mediated environmental stressors on the health of subsistence and sportfish populations in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, including downstream implications for dietary contaminant exposure in remote subsistence communities. She began conducting research in this area while serving as the State Toxicologist and Environmental Public Health Program Manager for the Alaska Division of Public Health. During her time with the State of Alaska, Dr. Nielsen worked to develop novel, multiple-lines-of-evidence relative risk prediction frameworks to inform and refine fish consumption recommendations for rural and Alaska Native subsistence communities. Her approach to risk evaluation integrates data from multiple regional biomonitoring programs with understudied qualitative determinants of risk, including socio-economic, demographic, cultural and site-specific factors. She also has specific expertise in the photo-induced toxicity of oil spills to early life stage marine biota, as well as the developmental toxicity of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pharmaceutical compounds and their metabolically active degradation products, and other emerging contaminants to ecologically and economically valuable fisheries species in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Nielsen received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of North Texas, following which she completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in aquatic toxicology.

Khalid Osman

Dr. Khalid K. Osman is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and a Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Khalid also holds faculty affiliations at the King Center for Global Development and the Center for the Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. His research focuses on the operationalization of equity and justice in the provision of infrastructure services. Specifically, employing qualitative and quantitative methods to develop novel frameworks at the intersection of the natural, built, and social environment. Currently, he is concentrated on water sector infrastructure, working to develop consistent and measurable definitions of water equity, frameworks for equity in the adoption of new water technologies, and exploring socio-technical solutions to sanitation justice challenges in rural communities. He has a passion for impact driven community-engaged research, highlighted by multiple collaborations with local community-based organizations. He leads Osman Lab to develop new approaches to equitable and just infrastructure in a world where climate change challenges vulnerable communities every day. He earned his BS from the University of Portland and his MS and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholars Graduate Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.

Kelsey Pieper

Dr. Kelsey Pieper is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on reducing disparities in access to safe drinking water in the US. Her group explores the fate and transport of drinking water contaminants in the built and natural environments, and the adoption of accessible, affordable, and effective remediation solutions. Dr. Pieper was also a core member of the Flint Water Study Team at Virginia Tech, conducting in-depth corrosion assessments and analyzing data collected during the citizen-led sampling campaigns. She received her Ph.D. in Biological Systems Engineering and M.S. in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Binghamton University.

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Human Health and Community Resilience Track: Early-Career Research Fellowship

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