Emory University
AC-9: Academic Research

Peggy F. Barlett, Anthropology Peter Little, Anthropology David Nugent, Anthropology Carol M Worthman, Anthropology Huw Davies, Chemistry Michael C Heaven, Chemistry Craig Livingston Hill, Chemistry Tianquan Lian, Chemistry Stefan Lutz, Chemistry Eri Saikawa, Environmental Science Tracy Yandle, Environmental Science Vincent Bruyere, French and Italian Elena Conis, History Patrick Nicholas Allitt, History Thomas Rogers, History Cathryn Johnson, Laney Graduate School Victoria Ann Powers, Math & Computer Science Naama Harel, ME and S Asian Studies Andrew Mitchell, Philosophy John J. Stuhr, Philosophy Cynthia Willett, Philosophy Michael Rich, Political Science Karen Hegvedt, Sociology Eloise B. Carter, Oxford College Biology Deric Shannon, Oxford College Peter Roberts, Organization & Research Mindy Goldstein, Turner Environmental Law Clinic Ani Satz, School of Law Barbara Woodhouse, Barton Clinic Carrie Ann Cwiak, GYN OB: Family Planning Dong Shin, HMO: Medical Oncology Mamoru Shoji, HMO: Medical Oncology, Guillermo E. Umpierrez, MED: Endocrinology James M. Hughes, Med: Infectious Disease Vincent Marconi, Med: Infectious Disease Xiaonan Wang, Med: Nephrology Francois J. Villinger, Pathology Robert J. Geller, Peds: General Lawrence Scahill, Peds: Marcus Alicia Smith, Psych: General Dept. Sarah Blanton, Rehab: Rehabilitation Kristin Dunkle, Behavioral Science & Health Kathleen Rae Miner, Behavioral Science & Health Frank Wong, Behavioral Science & Health Lance A. Waller, Biostatistics, Environmental Health Dana Barr, Environmental Health Karen Levy, Environmental Health Justin Victor Remais, Environmental Health; Epidemiology Michele Marcus, Epidemiology Deborah A. McFarland, Global Health; Health Policy & Management Steven D. Culler, Health Policy and Management Andrea Christina White, Theology & Culture

Faculty survey

Robert Agnew, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor, Department of Sociology has carried out research on the social consequences of climate change, including climate change and crime. His article, “Dire Forecast: A Theoretical Model of the Impact of Climate Change on Crime,” appeared in Theoretical Criminology. Jennifer R. Ayres, Assistant Professor of Religious Education and Director of the Religious Education Program in the Candler School of Theology, researches issues of faith formation in ecological context, social activism, and popular culture. She is the author of Good Food: Grounded Practical Theology (Baylor, 2013), in which she focused her attention on religious responses to the global food system, and Waiting for a Glacier to Move: Practicing Social Witness (Pickwick, 2011). Her current research explores educational practices that cultivate ecologically-attuned Christian faith. Peggy F. Barlett, Goodrich C. White Professor, Department of Anthropology and Faculty Liaison to the Office of Sustainability Initiatives is co-editor of Sustainability in Higher Education: Stories and Strategies for Sustainability (MIT Press, 2013). She received the inaugural AASHE Faculty Sustainability Leadership Award and carries out research on campus food systems and innovative strategies for institutional change. She serves on the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Research Council. Berry Brosi, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences has been funded by NSF, NIH, and USDA to explore honey bee declines using an ecological and evolutionary approach, including the consequences for plant reproduction of pollinator removal. He is a lead author in the IPBES (UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) “Global Assessment of Pollination and Pollinators." The causes and ecosystem functional consequences of pollinator declines are of critical societal relevance, given the central role of bees as pollinators in both natural ecosystems as well as the human agricultural enterprise. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Professor of English and Women's Studies, is a specialist on accessibility and sustainability, disability access, human centered design, and cultural disability studies. Her current book-in-progress, entitled Habitable Worlds, concerns the logic and design of inclusive public space. Mindy Goldstein, Director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor of Law focuses her work on sustainable energy and climate change, urban agriculture and farming, water quality and coastal resource protection, natural resource allocation, environmental justice, conservation, and land use. She was instrumental in the new urban agriculture ordinance that puts the City of Atlanta in the forefront of food access legislation. Jeremy Hess, in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Environmental Health, carries out research on the health effects of climate change, climate change adaptation, global health, and public health preparedness. A senior medical advisor for the Climate and Health Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he was lead author on the 2012 IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation as well as a lead author on the current US National Climate Assessment. Uriel Kitron is Professor and Chair of the Environmental Sciences department and his research focuses on the environmental risk factors of infectious disease with an emphasis on climate change, urbanization, agricultural practices, and conservation. Focusing on diseases such as dengue, malaria, schistosomiasis, chagas disease, and West Nile virus, he works on the environmental risk factors of transmission dynamics and ecology of the insect vectors and the mammalian and avian reservoir hosts in large-scale collaborations funded by NIH, NSF and CDC. Karen Levy, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health does research on the ecology and epidemiology of waterborne and enteric diseases. Using environmental microbiology and environmental epidemiology, she studies water quality, food safety, and the impact of climate and land use change on the transmission of diarrheal diseases. Some recent work documents the spread of antibiotic resistance in coastal Ecuador. Tianquan (Tim) Lian, William Henry Emerson Professor, Department of Chemistry carries out fundamental research of novel low cost and highly efficient solar energy conversion concepts. Current research efforts are focused on the preparation, characterization and fundamental understanding of photovoltaic and photocatalytic nanomaterials. Peter D. Little, Professor and Chair of Anthropology and Director of the Emory Program for Development Studies, is a specialist in development, political economy and pastoralism in East Africa. His recent work on political reform links environmental shifts, climate change, and globalization to dimensions of institutional change, as seen in his new book: Economic and Political Reform in Africa: Anthropological Perspectives (Indiana University Press, 2013). Wesley Longhofer, Assistant Professor, Organization & Management is a specialist in organizational sociology, institutional theory, nonprofits and philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, international law, and the environment. His current research includes a collaborative, cross-national study of the effect of environmental organizations on power plants' carbon emissions, as well as a number of papers on child rights and environmental policies. Linda McCauley, Dean of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, is conducting research on the effects of climate change and increased heat on the health of agricultural workers and also on methods to provide pesticide education to workers speaking indigenous languages. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Population Health and the Roundtable on Environmental Health. Most recently she served on the National Academy of Sciences Advisory Group for the Gulf Research Program. Dierdra Reber, Assistant Professor, Department of Spanish, researches contemporary Latin American and U.S. media (film, television, advertising, and political discourse) to explore the cultural shift from reason, which became dominant with the birth of free-market capitalism in the eighteenth-century age of revolution, to a greater emphasis on feeling, emotion, and sensory perception, as described in her new book, Coming to Our Senses: Affect and an Order of Things for Global Culture. Current work also combines interests in postcolonial studies and contemporary sustainability discourse to understand the construction of social legitimacy and power. Justin Remais, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health was recently awarded $2.5 million by the NSF Water, Sustainability and Climate Program to address waterborne disease risks in a changing and variable climate, using as test sites well-studied regions in western China and northern Ecuador. The project brings together earth scientists, environmental engineers, mathematical modelers, social scientists, and epidemiologists from five universities to develop open-source computational models for estimating the risk of infectious disease transmission in changing environments. Recent publications also address food safety and water sanitation challenges in China and modeling approaches for estimating health co-benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies. Eri Saikawa, Assistant Professor, Environmental Sciences and Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health. Funded by NOAA, the Energy Foundation, and NSF, her research focuses on the source and the magnitude of emissions linked to air pollution, ozone depletion and global warming, the modeling of past, present, and future global soil nitrous oxide emissions, global CFC-12 emissions, the seasonal and inter-annual variability of nitrous oxide emissions/mixing ratio, quantifying the impacts of Chinese vehicle emissions on regional air quality and health, and analyzing indoor air quality in Tibet. The impacts of these emissions on humans and on society, possible policy measures, as well as the role of politics in the policymaking process are also part of her work.