About

CJHL Director

Dr. Alexis Merdjanoff is an Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at New York University’s School of Global Public Health and Director of Research at the Center for Public Health Disaster Science. She is a public health sociologist who explores how population health is affected by exposure to disasters and climate change. Her work lies at the intersection of natural hazards, health disparities, and the preparedness, recovery, and resilience of socially vulnerable populations. The goal of her research is to understand the factors that shape the overall well-being of individuals and communities exposed to acute disasters, including floods, hurricanes, and wildfires, as well as slow onset climate disasters such as sea-level rise and coastal erosion.

Dr. Merdjanoff has extensive experience studying the long-term recovery and resilience of populations exposed to disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, as well as the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Reflecting her commitment to interdisciplinary climate research, she was named an Early Career Faculty Innovator Fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). More recently, she received an Early Career Research Fellowship from The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program. She is currently working on a grant funded by the National Institute on Aging to examine how older adults can successfully age in high-risk environmental areas. She holds a B.S. in Sociology from New York University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Rutgers University

CJHL Graduate Research Assistant

Katie is a doctoral student concentrating in Social and Behavioral Sciences at NYU GPH. Her work broadly applies place-based, environmental justice-informed approaches to understanding the impacts of climate-amplified compound disaster events. Her interests also encompass the role of place attachment in climate change adaptation and disaster mitigation. Currently, Katie’s research utilizes qualitative, spatial, and mixed- methodologies to examine the effects of climate change and cumulative disaster exposures on the cancer care continuum. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Katie was the Qualitative Methods Specialist in the Patient Reported Outcomes, Community Engagement and Language Core Facility at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Katie holds a BA in History and Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, an MS in Medical Anthropology from Boston University School of Medicine, and an MPH from NYU GPH.

CJHL Research Affiliate

Gabriella Meltzer is a postdoctoral research fellow in environmental health and epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded T32 combined training program. Her public health research interests broadly encompass how environmental exposures—ranging from natural hazards, technological disasters, biohazards, and industrial pollution—create and exacerbate health disparities at critical and sensitive periods of the life course, including infancy, childhood and adolescence, pregnancy, and old age. She uses a variety of methods to explore these issues, including quantitative data analysis, in-depth interviewing and qualitative data analysis, community-based participatory research, and geospatial analysis. Gabriella received her PhD in public health from NYU School of Global Public Health in 2022, where she was primarily affiliated with the Center for Public Health Disaster Science. Her dissertation examined the adverse consequences of child and adolescent exposure to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the context of cumulative environmental and family stress. Prior to her doctoral studies, Gabriella received her bachelor’s degree in Health and Societies from the University of Pennsylvania and was a global health research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations.

CJHL Coordinator

Liz Carr is a third year graduate student pursuing a Masters in Social Work and a Masters in Public Health. She serves as the Lab Coordinator for the Climate Justice and Health Lab, a Team Lead in the Applied Global Public Health Initiative, and as a Regenerative Agriculture Intern at the Kodaikanal International School - Center for the Environment and Humanity. She is interested in learning how to incorporate geospatial perspectives and community-based participatory research in global food security response in climate vulnerable regions. Upon graduation, she plans to get her license as a social worker while continuing to pursue research on the intersections of climate change and human health and well-being.

CJHL Data Analyst

Jianan (Zoe) Zhu is a Ph.D. student in the Biostatistics concentration. She is originally from China where she received a Bachelor of Medicine degree in Preventive Medicine at Nantong University in 2020. After that, she continued her master's study in Biostatistics at GPH.

Her previous research is mainly focused on developing and applying machine learning methods in public health data analysis. Currently, she is working on causal inference. She is interested in observational studies, randomized trials, sensitivity analysis, and their applications in health policy research, infectious disease research, and social sciences. In the future, She hopes to use causal inference methods in the public health field and make contributions to intervention and policy decisions.