Current Affiliates
Karen Abbott, PhD
Professor, Department of Biology, College of Arts & Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: theoretical ecology; interactions among species and between species and environment; spatial dynamics; dynamical systems modeling
Email: kcabbott@case.edu
Jonathan Adler, JD
Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law; Director, Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law, School of Law, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: environmental law; energy law; advancing environmental protection of structural, constitutional, and other constraints on government action; non-governmental institutions and enhancement in environmental protection; judicial constraints on regulatory policy and decision-making; legislatures and administrative agencies and advancing environmental policy goals
Email: jha5@case.edu
Sadeer Al-Kindi, MD
Assistant Professor; Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: Cardiovascular effects of environmental exposures and social determinants of health, and their intersection. Statistical modelling, machine learning techniques, and geospatial analysis for neighborhood phenotype discovery. Investigating the outcomes of interventions targeting social and environmental determinants of health on cardiometabolic health outcomes.
Email: Sadeer.Al-Kindi@uhhospitals.org
William Bush, PhD
Associate Professor for Bioinformatics, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences; Cleveland Institute for Computational Biology, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: genetic and environmental causes of disease through statistical approaches and information resources; community-level data research
Email: wsb36@case.edu
Jill Clark, PhD
Associate Professor; Director of Undergraduate Studies, John Glenn College of Public Affairs, Ohio State University
Research Interests: political, civic, and community engagement; food system policy and planning; food policy council and food system governance; food democracy; food security; agricultural economic development; healthy food access; small to mid-size farms engaged in the food system
Email: clark.1099@osu.edu
Claudia Coulton, PhD, MSW
Professor, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences; Founding Director, Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, , Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: effects of neighborhood, housing, and environmental conditions on family and child wellbeing and on data-informed community change strategies
Email: claudia.coulton@case.edu
Andrew Curtis, PhD
Professor, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: capturing and mapping contextualized aspects of environmental health; spatial patterns of lead exposure; health improvement through exercise; GIS; access to clean water; disease risk
Email: ajc321@case.edu
Jacqueline Curtis, PhD, MA
Co-Director, GIS Health & Hazards Lab, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: Geographic Information Science (GISc); environment-health relationships, particularly in women and children; exposure assessment; health services delivery; gene-environment interaction; developing methods for integrating local/expert knowledge
Email: jacqueline.curtis@case.edu
Jarrod Dalton, PhD, MA
Associate Staff, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic
Research Interests: understanding and integrating into clinical practice social, behavioral, and environmental factors that affect health; cardiovascular risk across the age and socioeconomic spectrum; integration of regional electronic medical record data with location-based data
Email: daltonj@ccf.org
Rob Fischer, PhD
Associate Professor & Co-Director, Center on Poverty & Community Development at Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: Examining the role of housing in child well-being and development. This includes the quality and risk associated with a child’s residential home and neighborhood and how these relate to kindergarten readiness, academic progress, and engagement with social systems that address risk. Recent work has focused on childhood lead exposure and its consequences for children as they age. The center on poverty & community development is serving as the Lead Safe Auditor for the City of Cleveland, monitoring the implementation of the City’s Lead Safe ordinance which requires all rental properties to have a Lead Safe certification.
Email: rlf11@case.edu
Seung Hee Lee, PhD, MS
Epidemiologist, CDC, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity
Research Interests: Community health; nutritional epidemiology and food systems; obesity; social determinants of obesity, such as nutrition, environment, and policy; food environment research, especially among vulnerable populations such as children, minorities, and low-income populations
Email: xde5@cdc.gov
Miranda Leppla, JD
Director, Environmental Law Clinic, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Research Interests: Environmental and energy law; environmental and energy justice; energy democracy; climate change governance, legislation and litigation; energy regulatory policy and electricity markets; sustainable, accessible, and carbon-free transit; energy facility siting, laws and regulations
Email: miranda.leppla@case.edu
David Lounsbury, PhD
Assistant Professor, Epidemiology and Population Health; Associate Director, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Training, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Research Interests: health services/delivery interventions; community-based interventions; prevention and control of chronic health illnesses; cancer; diabetes and obesity; HIV/AIDS; medically underserved populations; ecologically-grounded social science methodologies; systems modeling
Email: david.lounsbury@einstein.yu.edu
Maeve MacMurdo, MBChC, MPH
Staff Physician, Respiratory Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Director of the Occupational Lung Disease program
Research Interests: impact of air pollution exposure on respiratory health in vulnerable communities and at risk worker groups
Email: macmurm@ccf.org
Adam Perzynski, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine and Sociology, Center for Healthcare Research and Policy, MetroHealth; Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: novel strategies to eliminate health disparities; outcomes measurement over the life course; mixed methods research
Email: adam.perzynski@case.edu
Brandy Phipps, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Central State University
Research Interests: Holistic interactions of biomolecules in
plant extracts and foods; mechanisms of biomolecules in the prevention/alleviation of disease; evaluation of wellness needs and development of strategies to mitigate chronic health conditions in underserved and historically disadvantaged populations.
Email: bphipps@centralstate.edu
Francisca García-Cobián Richter, PhD
Research Associate Professor, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Research Affiliate, Center on Poverty and Community Development, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: social interventions within the environments in which they operate and their effects on the health and wellbeing of low-income communities, housing stability, housing quality
Email: fxr58@case.edu
Kristie Ross, MD, MS
Chief, Division of Pediatric Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine, UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Research Interests: interaction between airway disease, underlying sleep and pulmonary disorders; health disparities, exposures to environmental chemical, non-chemical toxins, social determinants of health, asthma, sleep disorders, physiological exposures influencing sleep and asthma outcomes
Email: kristie.ross@uhhospitals.org
Ashwini Sehgal, MD, MS
Co-Director, Center for Reducing Health Disparities, Professor, Department of Bioethics, Medicine & Population & Quantitative Health Sciences, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Research Interests: Determining the magnitude of greenhouse gas emissions related to hemodialysis treatment and the major sources of variation in these emissions
Email: axs81@case.edu
Kurt Stange, MD, PhD
Professor, Center for Community Health Integration, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: how complex environments and their interaction with human systems and equity; primary health care practice; community and population health; practice-based research; cancer prevention and early detection; multimethod research; health promotion; disability prevention; preventive service delivery in primary medical care
Email: kcs@case.edu
Daniel Tisch, PhD, MPH
Director, Master of Public Health Program, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: epidemiology; international health; community-engaged research; lymphatic filariasis; malaria; schistosomiasis; design and evaluation of diagnostics, monitoring tools, and disease elimination strategies
Email: daniel.tisch@case.edu
Wayne Tsuang, MD, MHS
Staff Physician, Respiratory Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio Lung Transplantation & Medical Intensive Care Unit, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: understanding risks to respiratory health; improving access to local care and regionalized healthcare; clinical care of the transplant patient and of the critically ill
Email: tsuangw@ccf.org
Colleen Walsh, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Sciences, College of Sciences and Health Professions, Cleveland State University
Research Interests: cultural anthropology; urban environments that affect physical and social health; social capital in community gardens; nutritious food access; social aspects of food habits; racial and health equity
Email: c.c.walsh@csuohio.edu
Xiong (Bill) Yu, PhD, P.E., Fellow ASCE
Interim Chair and Frank H. Neff Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Case Western Reserve University
Research Interests: infrastructure sustainability and resilience; environment friendly infrastructure; climatic adaptive infrastructure; a strong interdisciplinary emphasis that integrates innovative materials, smart structures, and smart technologies; environmental modulating materials for infrastructure life extension; building materials that autogenously improve the indoor environment; understanding the multiphysics phenomena in geoenvironment; data and machine learning based design and assessment of new materials
Email: xxy21@case.edu