I’m a Physical Scientist at the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development’s Integrated Climate Sciences Division. I provide the public, policymakers, and public health officials with high quality information about complex environmental issues. My work focuses on improving the understanding of the public health impacts of air pollution and other climate change-driven stressors in the United States.

Current projects

Research

• Leading project evaluating different indicators of wildfire smoke exposure in an epidemiological study of hospitalizations for respiratory and cardiovascular disease
• Leading project investigating the effects of co-exposure to wildfire smoke and extreme heat on preterm birth
• Interdisciplinary collaborations, including investigating the health effects of repeated exposure to extreme wildfire smoke events, the association between wildfire smoke and harmful algal blooms, and the impact of sea level rise on mangrove ecosystems

Scientific assessments

• Author, Sixth National Climate Assessment - Air Quality Chapter
• Chapter lead, Wildland Fire Smoke Public Health Assessment - Human Exposure and Health Effects Chapter

My skills and experience

Air pollution science

In recent years, my focus has been on researching the impacts of wildfire smoke. I have led and contributed to multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, and contributed to scientific assessments including the Integrated Science Assessments for criteria air pollutants and the National Climate Assessment. My research skills include performing

• Air pollution data analysis
• Exposure assessment
• Environmental epidemiology
• Health impact assessments

Data science

My research depends on sound management of large and complex environmental datasets and my colleagues rely on me to provide high quality analysis and communication of results. My data science skills include

• Fluency in Python and R
• Geospatial data analysis, including of vector and raster data as well as large spatiotemporal datasets
• Biostatistics and machine learning
• Data visualization

Software development

I have experience developing software tools facilitating systematic literature review and meta-analysis for the U.S. EPA’s science assessment programs. My contributions to software tool development include

• Python package development
• Data model development for web applications (for example, https://hawcproject.org/)
• Prototyping machine learning models
• Developing data science applications

Education

I have an MS in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health and a BS in Environmental Science from Appalachian State University.

Updated on 4/1/2025