About

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. My research quantifies the health impacts of environmental exposures to inform policy strategies that will protect human health. In one branch of my work, I study efforts to reduce the negative impacts of traditional biomass use through increased clean cooking fuel use to reduce air pollution exposures, improve health, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I also study the human health impacts of environmental hazards, including air pollution and temperature extremes, and investigate interventions that can reduce these impacts, serving as climate change adaptation strategies. My research contributes to the design of policies and programs that address climate change while delivering immediate health benefits for more sustainabl

Research topics

• Environmental health
• Medicine
• Meteorology
• Geography
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Biology
• Demography
• Environmental protection
• Physical geography
• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Pathology

Selected publications

• Priorities and opportunities for clean energy transitions to advance health in low-income and middle-income countries

  The Lancet Global Health · 2026-03-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Energy supports health and economic prosperity, yet low-income and socially or politically marginalised populations consume the least energy and depend on the most polluting fuels (ie, biomass). Despite decades of efforts to replace biomass, which is more damaging to health and the climate than cleaner alternatives (ie, gas and electricity), hundreds of millions of people remain without the benefits of clean and modern energy. We outline four priority areas for transitions to clean energy in low-income and middle-income countries: (1) rapidly reduce use of polluting fuels; (2) leverage clean energy to deliver direct health benefits; (3) align energy transitions with climate mitigation and adaptation goals; and (4) address persistent inequalities in energy access across and within countries. We highlight strategic, cross-cutting opportunities to strengthen policy design and implementation: targeted energy subsidies for populations facing the greatest barriers to access and sustained use, bundled interventions that combine clean energy with health care and nutrition services, integrated infrastructure and urban planning, and digital tools for improving data, payments, and service delivery. Clean energy must do more than reach households; it must fully displace polluting fuels and contribute to improved health, equity, and climate resilience where the need is greatest.

  PublisherDOI

• Acetylcholinesterase activity from childhood to young adulthood

  Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology · 2026-03-28

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond access: clean energy use in low-income and middle-income countries

  The Lancet Global Health · 2026-03-17 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Access to clean energy-here defined as electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, biogas, and ethanol-has increased substantially in low-income and middle-income countries over the past three decades.However, millions still lack reliable and affordable access to electricity and clean cooking fuels.This Series paper explores the drivers of clean energy adoption, assesses tools for tracking progress, and examines persistent barriers-including high costs, unreliable supply, and insufficient availability.Simplistic metrics, such as Sustainable Development Goal 7's binary indicators (eg, whether an individual has an electricity connection or not), risk overstating the health and equity impacts of energy transitions by overlooking fuel stacking, dynamic consumption patterns, and the gendered burden of polluting fuels.Drawing from historical trends and national policies, we show how targeted subsidies, robust supply chains, and coordinated investments have spurred increased clean fuel use.Meaningful gains require moving beyond technical fixes to inclusive, evidence-based strategies that address inequities, ensure affordability and reliability, and deliver lasting health benefits. Key messages Clean energy is central to global health, yet billions depend on polluting fuels Economic constraints are the primary determinants of fuel choices and therefore health outcomes Current metrics for clean energy access exaggerate progress and obscure health risks Targeted subsidies, robust supply chains, and coordinated investments have driven progress More rigorous causal evaluations of clean energy policy's health and climate impact are needed Streamlined, transparent funding is essential to meet health and climate goals www.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Household energy use and health in low-income and middle-income countries

  The Lancet Global Health · 2026-03-17 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  At the household level, energy powers human health and wellbeing, enabling essential services such as cooking, lighting, communications, heating, cooling, and ventilation. Despite the recognised need for reliable clean energy, access remains deeply unequal, with high-income households benefiting from modern energy sources while over 600 million people do not have access to electricity and 2-3 billion people rely on biomass fuels as an energy source to meet basic household needs. 2-3 million deaths annually are attributed to household air pollution (HAP) from the combustion of these fuels. HAP degrades ambient air quality and contributes to climate change. Studies of household energy and HAP largely focus on cooking-related emissions and might underestimate the true effect of energy use at home to meet a variety of needs, such as heating and lighting. This Series paper reviews the methods used to estimate the HAP disease burden, evaluates the current epidemiological evidence, and examines the health effects of interventions aimed at cleaner energy adoption. Despite differences in methodology, exposure assessment approaches, or the specific health outcomes considered, estimates of global deaths attributable to HAP exposure consistently remain in the millions each year. Thus, this Series paper also identifies areas for future research, emphasising the need for equitable access to clean energy, especially in low-income and middle-income countries.

  PublisherDOI

• Social Support, Traditional Care Practices, and Mental Health in Rural Ecuadorian Youth

  medRxiv · 2026-01-16

  articleOpen access

  Anxiety and depression account for a growing share of disability among adolescents and young adults globally, yet mental-health research and interventions focus primarily on clinical services, despite many in rural low- and middle-income settings relying on informal and culturally embedded systems of care. Using data from 488 emerging adults in a floriculture-intensive rural region of Ecuador, we quantified how ancestral medicine use and access to social support relate to anxiety and depression symptoms in a setting where formal mental-health care is limited. Anxiety and depressive symptoms were common (45% and 32%, respectively). Greater access to social support was strongly associated with lower depression scores and reduced odds of depressive symptoms, whereas associations with anxiety were weaker and more variable. In contrast, ancestral medicine use was associated with higher anxiety but showed no clear association with depression, indicating engagement with ancestral medicine as a care-seeking response to elevated psychological distress within a pluralistic care ecology rather than evidence of symptom alleviation. In contrast, access to social support was strongly associated with lower depression and reduced odds of depressive symptoms, with effects concentrated among males and among individuals reporting high relationship satisfaction and low loneliness. Pre-existing health conditions did not materially modify these associations. These patterns indicate that relationship quality governs whether access to social support translates into psychological protection, rather than social support operating as a uniformly protective exposure. These findings reframe youth mental health in rural agricultural settings as shaped less by engagement with specific therapeutic practices than by the structure and quality of social relationships, highlighting social support as a dominant correlate of resilience and ancestral medicine use as a marker of unmet mental-health need.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Quasi-experimental methods in air pollution epidemiology

  American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine · 2026-04-23

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond Access: Clean Energy use in Low-and Middle-Income Countries

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Quantifying the contributions of climate change and adaptation to mortality from unprecedented extreme heat events

  2025-02-15 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Understanding the mortality effects of the most extreme heat events is central to climate change risk analysis and adaptation decision-making. Accurate representation of these impacts requires accounting for the effects of prolonged sequences of hot days on mortality, the change in that mortality due to anthropogenic forcing, and the potential compensating effects of adaptation to heat. Here, we revisit the August 2003 heat wave in France, a canonical event in a region with rich climate and mortality data, to understand these influences. We find that standard heat mortality exposure-response functions underpredict excess deaths in August 2003 by 55%, but that accounting for the temporally compounding effects of hot days better matches observed mortality. After accounting for compounding effects and applying a machine learning approach to single-event climate attribution, we attribute 6,079 deaths in August 2003 to climate change, ten times higher than previous estimates. Finally, we show that recent adaptation to heat has reduced the projected death tolls of future 2003-like events by more than 75%.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Is a Microgram of Smoke Particulate Matter with an Aerodynamic Diameter ≤2.5 μm Worse for Respiratory Health? Interpreting New Evidence

  American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine · 2025-10-10

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Increasing risk of mass human heat mortality if historical weather patterns recur

  2025-01-14 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  The potential death toll of severe extreme heat events is crucial for climate risk analysis and adaptation planning but may not be captured by existing projections. We estimate this quantity for Europe using machine learning to calculate the intensity of historical heat waves if they occur at present or future global temperatures, combined with empirical exposure-response functions to quantify the resulting mortality. Each event is projected to generate tens of thousands of excess deaths. If August 2003 meteorological conditions recur at the current global temperature anomaly of 1.5 °C, we project 17,800 excess deaths across Europe in one week, rising to 32,000 at 3 °C. This mortality is comparable to peak COVID-19 mortality in Europe and is not substantially reduced by ongoing climate adaptation. Our results suggest that while mitigating further global warming can reduce heat mortality, mass mortality events remain plausible at near-future temperatures despite current adaptations to heat.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Marshall Burke

  Stanford University

  50 shared

• Johannes Urpelainen

  Johns Hopkins University

  43 shared

• Randall Rupper

  University of Utah

  32 shared

• J Huh

  Superconductor Technologies (United States)

  32 shared

• Darby Jack

  29 shared

• Steven N. Chillrud

  Columbia University

  27 shared

• Samuel B. Schlesinger

  20 shared

• Jennifer Morgan

  National Health Service Wales

  20 shared

Labs

• Environmental Change and Human Outcomes (ECHO) LabPI

Education

• PhD, Environmental Health Science

  Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

  2021

• BA, Environmental Studies

  Yale University

  2015