A career grounded in science and diplomacy [LinkedIn]

My trajectory is inspired by the scientists I worked closely with during my time as an advisor on international climate change policy at the U.S. Department of State under the Obama administration. As part of the senior team shaping the Paris Agreement, it was critical to acknowledge scientific, legal, and political realities in tandem. I found myself increasingly caught up in the details of regional climate impact projections and their implications for human health.

At Berkeley, I built on this professional background during my first masters degree to model the economic impacts of environmental change on public health, from cardiovascular and respiratory effects to shifts in the geographic manifestation of infectious disease. Immediately following this, I brought my computational skills together with my understanding of multilateral and bilateral negotiation to model national differences in environmental policy at the RAND Corporation.

Now at Stanford, I am continuing the efforts of my PhD with a postdoctoral focus on operational decision-making in regions where warming temperatures stand to augment transmission of vector-borne disease. In short, my academic research has reaffirmed a professional motivation to address the local effects of global problems: my career began with a specialization in domestic environmental issues at the Center for American Progress and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.