I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow co-mentored by Prof. Marc Weisskopf and Prof. Joel Schwartz at the Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I received my Ph.D. in Population Health Sciences recently in 2022 from Harvard University with my doctoral dissertation on “Ambient Exposures and Population Mental Health in the U.S.” One of the dissertation papers has been published in environmental and occupational health top journal The Lancet Planetary Health which found that acute exposure to elevated concentrations of air pollutants and cold season ambient temperature was significantly associated with an increased risk of hospital admissions for psychiatric disorders in the U.S. nationwide elderly population. In addition, my recent postdoctoral research work looking into the associations between long-term airpollution exposure and risk of late-onset depression diagnosis among US older adults was published online in JAMA Network Open on Feb 2023, and has since received much attention from the public and media, including CNN health. In general, my research interest lies in the intersections between the physical, social environment and human brain health combining my environmental science insights, neuropsychiatric epidemiology training and big data analytics skills. Besides, I am also interested in using novel causal inference and mixture modeling techniques to better understand and estimate the causal relationships between the full spectrum of environmental exposome and health of the human central nervous system over the life-course.
Current research includes the following aspects:
- Further establishing and validating the associations of air pollution mixture and harmful climate exposures with adverse neurological and psychiatric health outcomes from children to elderly;
- Investigating the life-course relationship between early life exposures and later life mental health, as well as identifying critical windows for intervention;
- Testing the modification/mediation roles of potential protective factors (e.g. neighborhood greenness and sustainable urban planning) for the impact of climate on population mental health, and building resilience.
My long-term research goal is to provide high-quality quantitative evidence on the harmful effects of environmental hazards on population neurological and psychiatric health for related risk assessment and policy making, and eventually to offer large population-based prevention/intervention from the perspective of urban planning, pollutants regulation and climate adaptation.