GeoHealth experts available to comment on COVID-19

COVID-19 is causing devastating impacts worldwide. Along with the virus’s effects on human health, scientists are also studying the disease’s impact on the environment and natural resources, and how the environment and weather are affecting the virus’s spread. Several GeoHealth experts, who study the intersections of the Earth and environmental sciences and health sciences, are available to comment on the connections between COVID-19, the environment, climate and health.

Ali S Akanda is an Assistant Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Rhode Island. He studies the intersections of water security, environmental change, and global health, focusing on water insecurity and climatic impacts on public health outcomes and developing early warning systems for the global health community.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 603-264-5214

Kacey Ernst is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Arizona. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist with expertise in field epidemiology in domestic and international field sites including syndromic surveillance, community engagement in prevention and control of infectious diseases, and field methods in epidemiology and the relationship between weather/ climate and infectious diseases.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 602-459-1482

Gabriel Filippelli is a Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He studies environmental health and disaster response and is Editor-in-Chief of the AGU journal GeoHealth.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 317-506-9996

Linsey Marr is the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research group studies emerging contaminants in the atmosphere and has spent the past decade focusing on the airborne transmission of viruses.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 540-231-6071

Jeffrey Shaman is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and Director of the Climate and Health Program at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He studies the survival, transmission, and ecology of infectious agents, including the effects of meteorological and hydrological conditions on these processes. He uses mathematical and statistical models to describe, understand, and forecast the transmission dynamics of these disease systems, and to investigate the broader effects of climate and weather on human health.
Email: [email protected]

Ben Zaitchik is an Associate Professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He studies the impact of environmental variability on infectious diseases. He is currently leading a study on meteorological sensitivities of COVID-19, with a focus on projecting risk through summer and into the fall and winter of 2020/2021.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 410-375-4814

 

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