{"id":20542,"date":"2025-02-28T13:43:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/?p=20542"},"modified":"2025-04-16T15:57:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T19:57:25","slug":"introducing-the-initiative-on-cities-2025-public-impact-scholars-cohort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/2025\/02\/28\/introducing-the-initiative-on-cities-2025-public-impact-scholars-cohort\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the Initiative on Cities 2025 Public Impact Scholars Cohort"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re thrilled to announce the Initiative on Cities 2025 Public Impact Scholars cohort! This year, 21 BU researchers will take part in a multi-day workshop to equip them with skills to translate their research into meaningful policy and societal impact. This group of researchers represents six colleges and 13 departments across the university, sharing a strong commitment to advancing research, policy, and practice aligned with the Initiative’s Urban-H Research Agenda<\/a> (Housing, Heat, and Health). We look forward to working with the following Public Impact Scholars<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"JacobJacob Brown<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssistant Professor of Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Where people live, and how where they live influences their politics, including the causes and consequences of political segregation in the United States.
\nUrban H Interests: Housing, Mental Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"BaharBahar Erbas<\/a><\/strong>
\nSenior Lecturer of Economics, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Empirical topics related to environmental, resource and energy, and public economics, focusing on environmental regulations and climate change.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"PatrickPatrick Kinney<\/strong><\/a>
\nBeverly Brown Professor of Urban Health, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: Issues at the intersection of climate change, health, and policy, including the effects of rising temperatures on mortality in cities, and the impact of climate action plans on health outcomes.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Kipruto Kirwa<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssistant Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: How environmental factors affect human health, and how those effects can be mitigated, including the interconnections between indoor and outdoor environmental quality, housing, and health outcomes.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"KevinKevin Lane<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssociate Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: Air pollution, built environment, urbanization and the impacts of climate change on health in local, national and international settings with an emphasis on big-data and spatial analyses.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"PhuongThaoPhuongThao (PT) Le<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssistant Professor of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: Examining mental health and sociocultural issues to inform the design, implementation, and evaluation of health programs and policies among marginalized populations globally.
\nUrban H Interests: Mental Health, Heat<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"JessicaJessica Leibler<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssociate Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: Environmental exposures with two central themes: assessing causes and risk factors for chronic kidney disease of non-traditional origin and environmental transmission of pathogens through food systems.
\nUrban H Interests: Housing, Health, Heat<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"RachelRachel Oblath<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssistant Professor of Psychiatry, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
\nExpertise: Provision of psychiatric emergency services to poor and underserved populations, and the relationship between extreme heat and mental health\/psychiatric emergency services.
\nUrban H Interests: Mental Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"MollyMolly Richard<\/strong><\/a>
\nPostdoctoral Associate at the Center for Innovation in Social Science, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Informs strategies to prevent and end homelessness, with a recent focus on how structural inequality contributes to homelessness, and what local and national actors can do in response.
\nUrban H Interests: Housing, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"KailaKaila Rudolph<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssistant Professor of Psychiatry, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
\nExpertise: The impacts of social determinants of health, primarily homelessness, on the medical and mental health of older adults.
\nUrban H Interests: Mental Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"EmilyEmily Ryan<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssociate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
\nExpertise: Develops computational models of reactive transport, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and electrochemistry to investigate the design and operation of energy-related systems.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"SylviaSylvia Shangani<\/a><\/strong>
\nAssistant Professor of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: HIV prevention among vulnerable populations in sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, in particular seeking to understand underlying behavioral and social risk factors for health inequities in HIV and mental health outcomes.
\nUrban H Interests: Health\/Mental Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"IanIan Smith<\/strong><\/a>
\nResearch Scientist in Earth and Environment, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Anthropogenic influences on the carbon cycle, including landscape fragmentation and urbanization impacts on forest productivity and respiration.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Housing, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"KeithKeith Spangler<\/strong><\/a>
\nClinical Assistant Professor of Health Sciences, Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences
\nExpertise: Health impacts of climate change and other environmental exposures using methods and data sets from both epidemiology and geoscience.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"AmandaAmanda Tarullo<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssociate Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Effects of early experiences on the neural and behavioral development of infants and young children, with a particular focus on how early life stress shapes the developing brain.
\nUrban H Interests: Mental Health\/Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"KathrynKathryn Thompson<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssistant Professor of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: Leverages economic frameworks to understand how social, demographic, and policy contexts shape health and disparities for women, people of color, and Medicaid populations.
\nUrban H Interests: Mental Health\/Health, Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"JuliaJulia Wagner<\/strong><\/a>
\nPostdoctoral Associate in Earth and Environment, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: How cities design and implement regulations and incentives to lower emissions from residential buildings, with a particular focus on making residential decarbonization more accessible to low- and moderate-income households.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Housing, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"MarcusMarcus Walton<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssistant Professor of Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Democracy and protest in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically looking at how legacies of colonial and post-colonial rule define contentious politics in the 21st century.
\nUrban H Interests: Housing<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ShannonShannon Whittaker<\/strong><\/a>
\nPostdoctoral Associate at the Center for Innovation in Social Science, College of Arts & Sciences
\nExpertise: Intersection of place, race, health and history, examines how social, structural, and political processes such as gentrification impact the health of marginalized communities of color, particularly Black communities.
\nUrban H Interests: Housing, Health, Heat<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"DarienDarien Alexander Williams<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssistant Professor of Macro Practice, School of Social Work
\nExpertise: Environmental & climate justice, broadly engaging Black and Muslim urban planning history, hurricane disaster recovery, climate change, and community organizing.
\nUrban H Interests: Heat, Housing, Health<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"MaryMary D. Willis<\/strong><\/a>
\nAssistant Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health
\nExpertise: Intersection of environmental epidemiology, spatial exposure assessment, and applied data science with a particular interest in how epidemiological studies can be best designed to inform health-protective policy decisions.
\nUrban H Interests: Health\/Mental Health<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re thrilled to announce the Initiative on Cities 2025 Public Impact Scholars cohort! This year, 21 BU researchers will take part in a multi-day workshop to equip them with skills to translate their research into meaningful policy and societal impact. This group of researchers represents six colleges and 13 departments across the university, sharing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23085,"featured_media":20570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23085"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20542"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21255,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20542\/revisions\/21255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ioc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}