Faculty and Staff

Dr. Darby Jack studies environmental health risks in developing countries, the health impacts of climate change, and the role of the urban environment in shaping health. For the last several years his primary focus has been the health effects of exposure to indoor air pollution from biomass fuels. With support from the Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan, he has helped to develop a Columbia-wide biomass working group, which coordinates and supports interdisciplinary research on the topic. These collaborations have given rise to current efforts to measure the health benefits of clean cookstoves in Ghana, Kenya, and India. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and an undergraduate degree from Williams College.

Dr. Kim Knowlton’s research focuses on the health effects of climate change; advocating for strategies to prepare for and prevent these impacts, especially for our most vulnerable communities; and making health a more central feature of national, state, and local climate change adaptation plans. She has researched heat- and ozone-related mortality and illnesses; connections between climate change, pollen, allergies and asthma, as well as infectious diseases like dengue fever; the health costs of climate change; and domestic and international climate-health preparedness strategies. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences from Hunter College, and received her Doctorate in Public Health from Columbia University.

Dr. Robbie M. Parks earned his PhD from Imperial College London and an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Oxford. He is an environmental epidemiologist whose primary interests are in understanding the impact that climate, weather, and air pollution has on mortality, nutrition, and disease outcomes, and how these impacts may be different in sub-groups of a population. He is also interested in developing new (particularly Bayesian) statistical methods, relevant to these concerns. In summer 2017, during his studies, he interned at the World Meteorological Organisation, a constituent part of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland. While interning, he became a founding member of the Global Heat Health Information Network.

Dr. Perera is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of molecular epidemiology, utilizing biomarkers to understand links between environmental exposures and disease. Currently, she and her colleagues are applying advanced molecular and imaging techniques within longitudinal cohort studies of pregnant women and their children, with the goal of identifying preventable risk factors for developmental disorders, asthma, obesity and cancer in childhood. A focus of her research is the impact of prenatal and early childhood exposure to toxic pollutants from fossil fuel burning on neurodevelopment and health of children.  She has written about the special vulnerability of the developing fetus and child to both toxic pollutants and CO2-related climate change, and the importance of accounting for these health costs as a co-benefit of reducing dependence on fossil fuel.

Links:

• Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health

Cecilia Sorensen conducts research on the links between climate change and health, including studies on how wildfire smoke is increasing ICU admissions, the links between heat stress and chronic kidney disease, and how climate change threatens to widen existing gender-based health disparities. She has served as an author for the U.S. Fourth National Climate Assessment and serves as a technical advisor for the Lancet Climate and Health U.S. Policy Brief. In 2017, she was named the first Climate and Health Science Policy fellow through a joint program between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the University of Colorado. She is a member of the Colorado Consortium for Climate Change, a scientific advisor for the Citizens Climate Lobby and the course director for the nations' first medical school course on climate change and human health. She also co-directs the National Climate-Health Fellowship program at the University of Colorado, a post-residency training program for physicians. She earned her MD at Drexel University College of Medicine and completed residency training in emergency medicine at Denver Health.

Links:

• GCCHE