Much of my work has focused on the health impacts associated with flooding. During my PhD studies at the University of Utah, I conducted a lot of work on the physical and mental health impacts associated with Hurricane Harvey. This research highlighted the disproportionate impacts of Harvey on racial/ethnic minorities and those of low socioeconomic status in Greater Houston. More recent work in collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, Harvard, and the University of Arizona analyzes 35.6 million death records spanning the past two decades, and reveals that large floods were linked to up to a 24.9% rise in deaths from major causes - including cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases and injuries - even in non hurricane-related floods caused by heavy rain, snowmelt or ice jams. I have also conducted a recent review paper in collaboration with researchers at the University of Arizona that examines differential impacts in physical and mental health outcomes while also assessing methodological considerations (i.e., flood exposure metrics, baseline health metrics) across the literature on flooding and health in the USA.

I've also examined inequitable exposure to extreme heat at the neighborhood-level using Landsat satellite imagery and air temperature data in places such as Phoenix, AZ, Lubbock, TX, and the Northeastern United States. This research has consistently observed that neighborhoods with higher percentages of racial/ethnic minorities and those of low socioeconomic status experience disproportionate exposure to elevated temperatures. I'm also increasingly interested in other metrics and devices to examine heat, such as mean radiant temperature, and sensor technologies.

I've also collaborated on projects focused on social inequalities in the distribution of PurpleAir sensors (a non-governmental air quality monitoring network) in Los Angeles County, California, and Phoenix, Arizona. This work indicates that neighborhoods with higher percentages of Hispanic/Latinx, Black, and low-income residents have reduced access to information about local air pollution. The near real-time, high spatial resolution pollution estimates provided by PurpleAir can help the public stay informed about their local air quality, which may in turn help them make routine and/or protective decisions to lessen their exposures. While people seek to use citizen science to equalize environmental knowledge, results from this research provides evidence that the self-organizing nature of a non-governmental air quality monitoring networks can be exclusionary and may reproduce patterns of environmental injustice.