October-November 2024: Susan gave a keynote address at the Urban Transitions conference in Sitges, Spain, and spoke at the Earth and Planetary Science Department at Northwestern University. She was a contributor to two reports on environmental justice mapping and analysis: the National Academies "Utilizing Advanced Environmental Health and Geospatial Data and Technologies to Inform Community Investment" report, and the EPA Science Advisory Board's "Review of EPA's draft Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis" report. She also co-organized a panel on "Federal investments to accelerate research at the intersection of geoscience and health sciences" with the AGU GeoHealth section, CAFE Research Coordination Network of the NIH Climate and Human Health Initiative, and NIH-funded Research and Engagement for Action on Climate and Health (REACH) Center.
August-September 2024: We were awarded an NIH P20 Exploratory Climate and Health Center, called the Research and Engagement for Action on Climate and Health (REACH) Center, which forms a partnership between GW, George Mason University, Howard University, and Environmental Defense Fund. The theme is bridging big data to climate solutions. Katie's systematic review of air pollution and maternal and fetal thyroid function was published in Environmental Health. Dr. Lulu Chen joined the group as a post-doc. She'll be working on estimating air quality, health, and equity benefits of urban transportation policies.
June-July 2024: Soo-Yeon was selected for a NASA FINESST award, focusing on applications of satellite observations in estimating NO2 concentrations, mortality, burdens, and inequities. The newly released version of EPA's EJScreen tool includes NO2 as a new indicator for the first time, using our concentration data derived from NASA's OMI satellite instrument and a land use regression model. Here's an article from NASA about it. Gaige's paper on air pollution impacts from warehousing using the TROPOMI satellite instrument was published in Nature Communications. Daniel Huber's paper on soil NOx was published in JGR Atmospheres. Omar's paper comparing satellite, airborne, and ground-level observations with model simulations of NO2 in Houston was published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
April-May 2024: Gaige's paper on disparities in Clean Air Act violations was published in Environmental Research Letters. We contributed to the inclusion of NO2 and pediatric asthma development as a new risk factor-outcome pair in the Global Burden of Disease 2021 study led by Michael Brauer. Susan, Dan, and Gaige attended the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team (HAQAST) Massachusetts meeting at MIT. Omar presented at the European Geophysical Union annual meeting. We received a new NIEHS award to improve Maryland EJSCREEN with additional indicators (PI: Sacoby Wilson).
February-March 2024: Gaige's paper on increasing disparities in air pollution health burdens in the US was published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Greta's paper on tracking progress towards urban nature targets was published in GeoHealth. We contributed to papers on using satellite data for environmental justice research, the importance of interdisciplinary research for addressing health-damaging climate events, and estimating future air pollution health burdens. Soo-Yeon was awarded the Jane Warren Award from the Health Effects Institute.
December 2023 - January 2024: Our group was well represented at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco. Susan, Gaige, Soo-Yeon, Katie, Greta, and Daniel H. presented in oral and poster sessions. Several group members also presented at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Baltimore - Susan, Gaige, Soo-Yeon, Dan G., Daniel H., and Omar. Gaige was also honored with a well-deserved Early Career Award from AMS. We contributed to papers on air quality changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, sensitivity of air pollution health impact assessments to modeling choices, and disparities in air pollution exposure using home and work addresses.
October-November 2023: We are excited to welcome Dr. Daniel Huber to the research group as a post-doctoral scientist. Dan's paper using satellite data to evaluate spatial patterns of NOx emissions was published in Remote Sensing of the Environment and Gaige's paper comparing NO2 disparities using monitoring, satellite, and modeling datasets was published in Environmental Science & Technology. Dr. Veronica Southerland's paper on demographics and land development in communities living near hazardous industrial facilities was published in Environmental Research Letters. Dan and Gaige presented their work at the HAQAST Utah meeting and Susan presented our "13,000 cities" work at an ISGlobal meeting on urban air quality.
August-September 2023: We contributed to new publications on long-term trends in black carbon and PM2.5, neighborhood-scale air quality and health impacts of vehicle electrification and heavy-duty trucks, and inflection of growth in global fine particulate matter and associated health burdens. Susan presented at the CEEJH annual meeting and a Princeton workshop on integrating health into energy modeling. Gaige presented at the WESTAR meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.
June-July 2023: Kate and Doyeon wrapped up their post-docs at GW and started new jobs -- Kate as a AAAS Fellow at the DOE, and Doyeon as a GESTAR researcher at NASA Goddard. We welcomed Erin Campbell to the team as an MPH student Research Assistant. We had several opinion articles come out -- on wildfires and outdoor workers, lack of health impacts from wildfire smoke in Social Cost of Greenhouse Gas estimates, and the need for satellite tracking of wildfire smoke. Susan was interviewed by WAMU on wildfires and the new TEMPO satellite instrument.
April-May 2023: Dan and his family were welcomed by baby Izzy! We said goodbye to Tess who joined the U.S. Congress Joint Research Committee. We contributed to new papers on NO2 concentrations globally and a unified data set of environmental and health data for modeling COVID-19. Dan is the PI on a new NASA grant, "Pushing the boundaries of fine-scale NOx emission quantification from remote sensing instruments." We also received a new grant from Wellcome Trust, led by Kevin Cromar, to add air quality into the Social Cost of Greenhouse-Gases.
January-March 2023: We welcomed post-doc Dr. Omar Nawaz who recently completed his PhD at University of Colorado - Boulder. Doyeon's paper on CO2 emissions in C40 cities and Omar's paper on sources of air pollution-related health impacts in US cities were published. We contributed to new papers on future satellite needs for atmospheric composition and PM2.5 exposure inequity from coal power plants. We started a new project with Natural Resources Defense Council to integrate health and equity into climate policy planning tools. Susan gave presentations at EPA Office of Research and Development, Yale, NASA GESTAR program, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Gaige and Kate presented at the American Meteorological Society meeting. Gaige and Susan submitted comments to EPA on climate pollution reduction grants. Susan was appointed to the National Academies Committee on Utilizing Advanced Environmental Health and Geospatial Data and Technologies to Inform Community Investment.
November-December 2022: Susan, Dan, Gaige, Kate, Doyeon, Tess, and Greta all represented our group at AGU Fall Meeting in Chicago with talks, posters, and organized sessions. Danny Malashock's paper on trends in ozone concentrations and disease burdens in cities worldwide was published. We also contributed to new journal articles on the global burden of disease from air pollution, trends in urban air pollution, and sources and impacts of air pollution in G20 countries. Susan submitted public comments with some leading climate-health researchers on an EPA review panel on new estimates of the social cost of greenhouse gases.
September-October 2022: Danny Malashock successfully defended his PhD dissertation. We contributed to new journal articles on Arctic warming impacts of air quality policies and the role of GeoHealth in co-creating solutions that address environmental injustice. The GW Climate and Health Institute held an event on health and environmental justice implications of US climate action, keynoted by Senator Tom Carper. Susan, Dan, Gaige, Kate, Tess, and Doyeon presented at the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team meeting in Madison, WI.
July-August 2022: We welcomed post-doc Tess Carter, PhD student Soo-Yeon Kim, and RA Erin Phillips. We said goodbye to Perrin Krisko who is embarking on a Fulbright scholarship to measure air pollution in Nepal. We contributed to the Air Quality and Health in Cities report from the Health Effects Institute, which was accompanied by an interactive data visualization website. We published papers on wildfire smoke and indoor air (led by Kate O'Dell) and integrating air quality and climate planning in cities (led by Gary Kleiman). Susan participated in a Keystone Symposium e-panel on Climate Change, Air Quality, and Lung Health. We were approved to launch a new project using satellite data, models, and monitors to characterize impacts of warehouse-related transportation activity on air quality.
May-June 2022: Gaige led a paper published in Environmental Research Letters on influence of diesel share in the passenger vehicle market on NO2 changes during COVID-19 lockdowns. Susan contributed to papers on integrating climate and air quality in urban planning, what clinicians need to know about health effects of air pollution and climate change, and sources contributing to PM2.5 in cities globally. Dan, Susan, Gaige, Kate, and Doyeon spoke at the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team meeting in Houston. We welcomed Natalie Youssef, Rishabh Khanna, Ziyad Maknojia, and Emily Richardt as Research Assistants.
March-April 2022: PhD candidate Danny Malashock was first author on a paper on ozone concentrations and disease burdens in 13,000 cities. MPH students Lauren Johnson, Perrin Krisko, Katie O'Donnell, and Nick Pendleton led a paper, also contributed to by Post-doc Doyeon Ahn, on health in urban climate action plans. Doyeon led and Dan Goldberg contributed to a paper on US power sector CO2 and NOx emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns. We launched a new website sharing PM2.5, ozone, and NO2 concentrations and disease burdens in 13,000 cities.
January-February 2022: We published two papers reporting air pollution levels and associated disease burdens from 2000-2019 in the journal Lancet Planetary Health - one on PM2.5 and another on NO2 (interact with the data here). Susan talked about the studies on BBC Newshour, and the studies were also covered by the Washington Post, USA Today, Independent, Chicago Sun-Times, The Hill, Yahoo News, and WNYC/Gothamist.
December 2021: Our group was well represented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. Check out our presentations page for information on talks by Susan, Dan, Gaige, Kate, Doyeon, Danny, Veronica, and Greta. New collaborative paper with University of Colorado-Boulder: sources of air pollution in Washington DC.
October-November 2021: Our group published papers on NOx emissions, PM2.5 inequity, and health co-benefits of climate policy. Our research was covered by NASA Earth Observatory, WTOP, and WAMU/dcist. Susan presented at conferences and workshops in the U.S., Colombia, UK and Qatar.
August-September 2021: We launched the GW Climate and Health Institute. Gaige's paper on persistent NO2 inequities during COVID-19 was published by PNAS. Our team published two articles on using satellite data for air quality in EM Magazine. Dan spoke at the IGAC 2021 conference on urban NOx emissions. Susan gave keynotes at the MAC-MAQ meeting and at the NASA PACE 2nd Applications Workshop. She called on medical professionals to engage in climate and air quality policy at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease. Slides for these talks are available on our Presentations page. We welcomed Xavier Nogueira, a Data Science Research Associate to the group.
July 2021: We welcomed some exciting new group members -- post-doctoral research scientists Doyeon Ahn and Kate O'dell, data science research assistant Nigel Martis, and public health research assistants Perrin Krisko and Catherine O'donnell. Stay tuned for some ground-breaking research coming from this group of excellent researchers! Susan was appointed to a WHO advisory group for air pollution and climate change.
May-June 2021: Our group was awarded a grant to research the value of a next generation NOAA atmospheric composition satellite for estimating air pollution-related health impacts, and our NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team projects got underway. We will be leading Tiger Teams on using satellite data to explore environmental injustice and NOx emissions in urban areas. We contributed to journal articles on climate, air quality, and public health impacts of food production and consumption; satellite monitoring for air quality and health; and how COVID-19 is shaping the future of science.
March-April 2021: Gaige won a Jane Warren Trainee Conference Award from the Health Effects Institute. Susan spoke about using satellite data for environmental health at NOAA and NASA workshops for new satellite missions, and chaired the National Academies workshop "Leveraging Advances in Remote Geospatial Technologies to Inform Precision Environmental Health Decisions". Dan spoke about using satellite data for estimating NOx emissions at NCAR.
February 2021: Our group led an article on using satellite remote sensing for NO2 concentrations in the U.S. and contributed to an article on estimating air quality impacts of future wildfires in the U.S. under climate change. Susan spoke at an Air & Waste Management regional symposium on COVID-19, environmental justice, and future trends in air quality and climate.
December 2020 - January 2021: Our group was well represented at annual meetings of the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society. Susan gave a talk at the Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series. Danny passed his dissertation proposal defense and is now a PhD candidate. We were selected to be a part of the new NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team.
November 2020: Arash's paper on the sensitivity of estimated NO2-attributable pediatric asthma incidence was accepted by Environmental Research Letters. Susan also led a systematic review of the health effects of combined exposure to heat, air pollution, and pollen, which was published in the journal Environmental Health. Susan and Dan presented at the Ozone Transport Commission's annual meeting.
September and October 2020: Susan helped organize a National Academies workshop on wildland fire and air quality forecasting. She also spoke at the Clean Air for All event marking the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act. Susan contributed to an article on LEAP-IBC, a new tool for assessing climate, air quality, health, and agricultural co-benefits of policies. Dan spoke at the CMAS conference.
July and August 2020: We welcomed Gaige Kerr, Lauren Johnson, and Nick Pendleton to the group! Dan and Susan published an analysis of the effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on NO2 in North American cities. Susan presented at the National Academies Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics and at the Japanese Geophysical Union meeting. Our group gave 9 presentations at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology virtual meeting. Slides for some of these presentations are available here.
June 2020: We received a NASA Rapid Response and Novel Research in Earth Science grant to investigate inconsistent effects of COVID-19 physical distancing measures on NO2 pollution in cities globally. We have two preprints out describing some of this work here and here. We also published a Commentary in GeoHealth that shares lessons learned from our NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Science Team (HAQAST) Tiger Team on Global Climate and Air Quality Indicators.
April 2020: Our group is adapting our research to address the Covid-19 crisis. We are now investigating interactions between air pollution and virus spread and severity. We are also using satellites to analyze how air pollution has changed in different parts of the world after lockdowns were implemented. Susan and Dan have been interviewed on this topic by a variety of media outlets, including Washington Post, National Geographic, and Nature. Our work that predated Covid-19 also continues from our homes.
January 2020: We welcomed two new group members: MPH student Julia Weil and undergraduate Margaret Nelson. They will be studying health benefits of urban sustainability planning. Susan and Dan presented on air quality and associated health impacts at the American Meteorological Society meeting, where Dan's plots showing NO2 concentration trends were also featured on the NASA Hyperwall.
December 2019: Our group was well represented at AGU Fall Meeting, where Dan Goldberg, Arash Mohegh, and Veronica Southerland all presented their work. We were also awarded a new grant from the Health Effects Institute to study long-term trends in the global burden of NO2 on asthma in partnership with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Oregon State University.
November 2019: Read summaries of our work on U.S. NOx emissions via TROPOMI, and air quality and health co-benefits of urban climate action planning. Susan co-authored an article in Environmental Health Perspectives on environmental hazards in the Global Burden of Disease. Dan published an article in Science of the Total Environment using TROPOMI to assess U.S. NOx emissions. Veronica was a grand prize winner of the 2019 AGU Data Visualization and Storytelling Competition (check out her presentation on the NASA Hyperwall at AGU Fall Meeting). Susan gave talks at NOAA on the nexus of climate, air quality, and health; at the Collaborative for Health and the Environment on climate risks for chemical safety and dust exposure, and at a workshop on incorporating health into urban transportation planning.
October 2019: Dan presented on estimating air pollution emissions, exposures, and public health impacts in cities worldwide at the "New Applications in the Use of Satellite Data Monitoring for Population Health" meeting in Huntsville, AL. Slides
September 2019: Susan led and Ploy co-authored an article published in Environmental Research Letters, entitled "The global burden of transportation tailpipe emissions on air pollution-related mortality in 2010 and 2015."
August 2019: Susan led and Ploy co-authored an article published in Scientific Reports, entitled "Particulate matter-attributable mortality and relationships with carbon dioxide in 250 urban areas worldwide."
August 2019: Ploy wrote and Susan narrated this video on air pollution and health impacts, produced by NASA Earth Sciences for Science on the Sphere. See more videos at http://climatebits.umd.edu/.
June 2019: Susan welcomed her 3rd son to the world! She is on parental leave until November.
June 2019: Maria Castillo is joining the group as a Research Associate. Maria has been a researcher at Boston University and will be estimating health impacts of air pollution at the neighborhood scale using satellite-derived concentration estimates.
May 2019: Dan Goldberg is joining the group as a Research Scientist. Dan has been a post-doc at Argonne National Laboratory and has expertise in using satellite remote sensing and chemical transport models to estimate air pollution levels in cities.
May 2019: Ploy finished her post-doc and accepted a job at the Stockholm Environment Institute, where she will be working on fossil fuel supply and climate change goals.
May 2019: Ploy presented her work on the global burden of NO2 on pediatric asthma incidence at the Health Effects Institute annual meeting.
April 2019: Commentary entitled, "Extreme weather, chemical facilities, and vulnerable communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast: a disastrous combination" published in GeoHealth. Casey and Susan wrote it together.
April 2019: Paper entitled, "Global, national, and urban burdens of paediatric asthma incidence attributable to ambient NO2 pollution: estimates from global datasets" is published in Lancet Planetary Health. Ploy is the lead author and Susan is the corresponding author. The paper received international media attention, including from BBC, the Guardian, Newsweek, the Independent, Hindustan Times, Le Monde, US News and World Report, and many others.
April 2019: Paper entitled, "Effects of increasing aridity on ambient dust and public health in the U.S. Southwest under climate change" is published in GeoHealth. Ploy is the lead author and Susan is a co-author.
April 2019: Shannon Haines joined the group as a Research Assistant. Shannon is pursuing her MPH in Global Environmental Health at GWU. She will be reviewing the literature on synergistic effects between air pollution, temperature, and pollen exposure.
February 2019: Susan led a report sponsored by the International Council on Clean Transportation and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition about the global burden of transportation emissions on air pollution-related mortality. The report received international news coverage.
January 2019: Veronica Southerland joined the group full time as a Senior Research Associate. She is also pursuing her DrPH at GWU. Her research focuses on hyperlocal air pollution health impact assessment using exposure estimates from mobile monitoring.
January 2019: Ploy gave two presentations at the American Meteorological Society meeting in Phoenix. One was on climate, dust, and health impacts in the Southwest U.S. The other was on PM2.5 and NO2 disease burdens in cities worldwide. Susan Also presented at the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Science Team's 5th meeting in Phoenix. Her presentation was an update on the HAQAST Indicators Tiger Team.
December 2018: Arash Mohegh joined our group as a post-doctoral scientist! He did his PhD at University of Southern California focusing on evaluating actions to mitigate urban heat islands.
December 2018: Paper on climate, aeroallergens, and health in the US published in the AGU journal GeoHealth. We estimated how climate change may increase the season length for grass, oak, and birch pollen, with consequences for asthma emergency department visits.
December 2018: Ploy and Susan presented at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Washington, DC. Ploy presented on climate, dust, and health in the US Southwest. Susan gave one presentation on climate, air quality, and planetary resilience, and another on PM2.5, health impacts, and climate mitigation co-benefits in cities worldwide.
November 2018: Susan presents at the National Academies Board on Atmospheric Science and Climate board meeting in Washington, DC. Title: Health impacts of wildfire smoke.
November 2018: Our research proposal to use satellite remote sensing to improve estimates of air pollution and associated health impacts in megacities was selected for NASA's Health and Air Quality program. Collaborators include University of Colorado, Boston University, Stockholm Environment Institute, Vital Strategies, and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition.
November 2018: Susan participated in an Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) workshop of the Expert Group on Short-Lived Climate Pollutants in Bologna, Italy. The group is preparing an Assessment for 2021 and Susan is leading the Health Co-benefits chapter.
November 2018: Susan presented at the Columbia University Air Pollution Extreme's Workshop. Title: Estimating health impacts associated with ambient air pollution in cities worldwide.
October 2018: Susan and Veronica's paper on the global burden of air pollution on asthma was published in Environmental Health Perspectives. It is already in the top 99% of papers tracked by Altmetric for online attention.
October 2018: Ploy presented on climate, dust, and health in the Southwest US at the U.S. Air Quality Research Subcommittee and Discussions meeting in Washington, DC.
September 2018: Susan presented (title: "NASA HAQAST Hi-Res Tiger Team: Neighborhood-scale air pollution health impacts") at the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Science Team's webinar.
September 2018: Susan gave a seminar at Dalhousie University's Atmospheric Composition Group entitled "Global health impacts of ambient air pollution: Integrating atmospheric science, public health, and environmental policy."
September 2018: Susan is a co-author on Earth's Future article describing the neglected but serious problem of Arctic air pollution.
August 2018: Susan is named an Editor of the AGU journal GeoHealth. GeoHealth publishes papers at the intersection of Earth and environmental sciences and health sciences.
August 2018: Health Effects Institute publishes Communication 18, Household Air Pollution and Noncommunicable Disease. Susan was part of the author team.
July 2018: Susan presents at NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Science Team meeting in Madison, WI. Title: Using satellite-derived PM2.5 to estimate neighborhood-scale health impacts.
July 2018: Article co-authored by Susan on climate change, wildfires, air pollution, and health accepted and posted online at GeoHealth.
June 2018: Our piece on climate, dust, and health is published in The Conversation. The article is a plain English summary of our paper in Environmental Research Letters.
June 2018: New webpage launched!
May 2018: Susan's new class "Global Climate Change and Air Pollution: Science, Impacts, and Solutions" begins for GWU MPH students.
May 2018: New research led by Susan on the global burden of ambient air pollution on asthma is presented by Ruth Doherty at the Planetary Health Annual Meeting in Edinburgh.
May 2018. Paper on changing dust concentrations in the Southwest US under climate change published in Environmental Research Letters, led by post-doctoral scientist Ploy Achakulwisut in collaboration with Loretta Mickley. Read more about the paper here.
May 2018: Susan presents on health impacts of air pollution in Alaska at the ALaskan Pollution and Chemical Analysis (ALPACA) workshop in Fairbanks.
May 2018: Congratulations to Research Assistant Alex Lindahl on his MPH graduation!
April 2018: Post-doctoral scientist Ploy Achakulwisut writes a compelling op-ed about the human cost of fossil fuels in the Guardian.
April 2018: Research Assistant Alex Lindahl's poster on community-scale health impacts of air pollution in 4 U.S. metropolitan areas wins the sustainability award at GWU Research Days.
March 2018: Susan participates in Global Burden of Disease - Pollution and Health workshop at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle.
February 2018: Susan participates in Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Expert Group on Short-Lived Climate Pollutants meeting in Helsinki.