Members

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Dr Reazul Ahsan teaches urban ecology courses at the University of Utah Asia Campus. He earned a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of South Australia in 2013. Dr Reazul is working in the area of climate change and urban health crisis, climate risk reduction and mapping, urban risks reduction and GIS application for analyzing urban health and air pollution concentration risks. He has over 12 years’ experience in global research and teaching and has published articles on climate-resilient cities, sustainable urban planning and development issues with a key focus on urban resilience and ecological suitability.
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Web Site: http://plan.cap.utah.edu/?team=reazul-ahsan-phd

Dr. Bakian is an environmental epidemiologist, biostatistician, and Director of the Utah Registry of Autism and Developmental Disabilities (URADD); a public health surveillance system for autism and developmental disabilities. Her research aims to identify environmental, geographical, and familial contributors to the risk of psychiatric conditions including autism spectrum disorder and suicide. In particular, she is interested in how environmental exposures such as ambient air pollution interact with individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics to increase vulnerability to psychiatric conditions. Dr. Bakian is Principal Investigator of a five-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health to investigate how mixtures of air pollution and weather exposures influence the risk of suicide.
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Dr. Cummins holds a PhD in nursing science and information science from Indiana University. In 2007, she studied methods of complexity science including agent-based modeling and network analysis at the Santa Fe Institute. Prior to her career in informatics, she practiced as an emergency nurse and family nurse practitioner. She has made numerous scholarly contributions in informatics, particularly in the areas of poison control informatics, health information exchange and applied data science. She serves as a biomedical informatics lead for the University of Utah Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She is contributing to the development of a research informatics platform that enables the integration of air quality sensors into studies of pediatric asthma.
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Building on an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Iowa and a decade of work in industry before returning to earn a PhD in Occupational & Environmental Health, Dr. Collingwood joined the faculty at the University of Utah at the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational & Environmental Health (DFPM). He moved to the Department of Pediatrics in 2009 as Director, Environmental Monitoring for the University’s National Children’s Study (NCS) sites; a line of research that has continued subsequently as the Utah Children’s Project and Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) study. Dr. Collingwood’s research focuses on novel methods of exposure monitoring using direct reading instrumentation to provide accurate and real-time exposure estimates for airborne contaminants. Current research leverages the lessons learned in developing the CEEHI data ecosystem. In partnership with Salt Lake County, University of Utah Health, and Dr. Daniel Mendoza [CEO of AQEHS Corp and Research Assistant Professor in Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah] , Dr. Collingwood is working with families enrolled in the Utah Children’s Project and the Green and Healthy Homes initiative in the Salt Lake Valley to monitor PM 2.5, ozone, and radon within their homes.
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Dr. Facelli was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and attended the University of Buenos Aires where he got his PhD in physics in 1982. In 1983 he did post-doctoral research at the University of Arizona and the following year he joined the University of Utah. He was the Director of the Center for High Performance Computing from 1995 to 2013 and he is currently Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Associate Director for Biomedical Informatics at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry and Physics and member of the Utah Nano Science Institute. He has extensive expertise in computational sciences, parallel and distributed computing and advance network applications.
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Web Site: http://home.chpc.utah.edu/~u0033399/

Dr. Gouripeddi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, and a Senior Biomedical Informatics Scientist leading operational aspects of the biomedical informatics core for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (https://ctsi.utah.edu/). He earned his medical degree from MGR Medical University, India and his MS from Arizona State University. He leads research and development of diverse health informatics projects including data integration, metadata discovery, recruitment, streamlining research data and statistical analytics, and machine learning. He is the R&D lead for OpenFurther (, http://openfurther.org/) an open source informatics solution for biomedical data integration and federation, key infrastructure leading to the CEEHI informatics ecosystem; extending its capabilities as a Big Data integration platform including exposomic and sensor data for epidemiological research.  Among other projects Dr. Gouripeddi is the Utah site informatics lead for the PaTH PCORnet Clinical Data Research Network and the CTSA Accrual to Clinical Trials network; and leads development of novel approaches for recruitment of clinical trial participants as a partner in the NCATs Recruitment Innovation Center ( https://trialinnovationnetwork.org/recruitment-innovation-center/ )
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Dr Groat is a biostatistician for Pulmonary & Critical Care Research and The Center for Humanizing Critical Care at Intermountain Healthcare, with a faculty appointment as an Assistant Professor. She completed a PhD in biomedical informatics at Arizona State University and post-doctoral training in the University of Utah Department of Biomedical informatics. Her research focuses on gathering and collecting data from real-world settings in order to analyze the effects of the environment and behaviors. Currently her research interest is understanding the effects of indoor air quality during the post-intensive care recovery phase.
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Dr. Hanson is Group Lead of the Biostatistics and Multiscale Systems Modeling Group in the Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and adjunct faculty at the University of Utah in the Department of Population Health Sciences, Sociology, and Surgery. She has conducted demographic, cancer, and aging related research using the Utah Population Database, SEER data, Environmental Protection Agency data, and air pollution exposure data. Her research emphases include understanding how environmental influences throughout the life course affect later life health and the health of future generations, genetic and environmental risk factors for cancer risk, and familial, community, and socioeconomic factors affecting health outcomes.
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Building on degrees in mechanical engineering and post-docs in meteorology and environmental engineering, Dr. Holmes leads a research group that uses ground-based sensors, atmospheric models, and satellite remote sensing to investigate atmospheric physics; air pollution sources, transport and dispersion; and relationship with human health. She has a history of collaborative research with the objectives of improving the understanding of air pollution exposure and understanding regulatory impacts on ambient air pollution concentrations.
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Dr. Horel’s research is centered on the observation and analysis of weather and climate processes in mountainous regions. He leads development of MesoWest and ROMAN (see http://mesowest.utah.edu) platforms, which provide access to surface weather observations for operational, research, and educational applications. Dr. Horel also conducts research to improve data assimilation techniques over complex terrain and evaluate the cost effectiveness of surface observing networks. He has been engaged in environmental research related to the Great Salt Lake, Utah regional climate issues, and cold-air pools associated with poor air quality. He leads an ongoing project observing air quality from sensors on board light rail cars in Salt Lake County.
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Dr Kasera leads the Advanced Networked Systems Research (ANSR) Lab, founded in 2003. His research interests include networks and systems – technologies, protocols and applications encompassing mobile and pervasive systems and wireless networks, security, privacy, and reliability, Internet of Things, crowdsourcing, dynamic spectrum access, network resource management, network measurements and models, and social network applications. Dr. Kasera led investigations regarding the security of the PRISMS data ecosystem, and exploring options such as blockchain for improved security of Internet of Things device networks.
Website: https://www.cs.utah.edu/~kasera/

Dr. Kelly is a professional engineer and an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah. She has a PhD in Environmental Engineering and a BS in Chemical Engineering. Dr. Kelly is committed to the translation of science to smart community and policy decisions. Her research focuses on understanding the connections between energy, air quality and health.  Recent research includes projects to develop the next-generation of low-cost particulate matter sensors, to develop real-time estimates of particulate matter concentration and uncertainty, and to help engage high-school and middle-school students as citizen scientists. Her work in cost-effective, air quality sensing led to her co-founding a company, Tellus Networked Sensor Solutions
Website: https://kairlab.che.utah.edu/

Dr. Hanseup Kim has degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. His research interests include the design, fabrication, and testing of MEMS actuators and sensors (devices that convert electrical energy to mechanical motion); technologies and structures for polymer-based bioapplications; micro energy harvesting devices; analog and digital integrated circuits for MEMS; and micropackaging technologies. Dr. Kim’s research helps us to understand the use of sensors for measuring diverse types of environmental exposures.
Website: http://www.ece.utah.edu/~hanseup

Dr. Kitt’s research interests are: Optical Spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Phospholipid Bilayers, Separations, and Interfacial Chemistry. He teaches and conducts research in analytical chemistry, including using confocal Raman microscopy to probe interfacial environments within nanoporous materials.  As a post-doc in Biomedical Informatics, he investigated the impact of air pollution exposures on pulmonary disease outcomes; with subsequent work that used data science methods to examine effects of the environment on birth outcomes.
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Dr. Lundrigan’s research focuses on mobile networks, Internet of Things, wireless network management, remote sensing, and building real systems that enhance and extend wireless networks. As part of his work on the NIBIB PRISMS grant, he designed and built the system architecture and helped to deploy air quality sensors throughout Salt Lake Valley. He has also deployed air quality sensors in Mongolia as part of a humanitarian aid project. He directs the NET Lab at Brigham Young University.
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Website: http://netlab.byu.edu/

Sejal Mistry is an MD-PhD trainee working with Dr. Facelli’s lab. She was recently awarded an F30 grant to study the influence of environmental exposures on glucose dysregulation in type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Dr. Nkoy is a physician scientist. His research interest focuses on the care of patients with asthma and other complex medical conditions. In addition to clinical medicine, Dr. Nkoy’s background includes training in public health, biomedical informatics and quality improvement with an emphasis on implementation and dissemination research. Dr. Nkoy studies the process by which organizational and contextual factors in health care delivery environments influence implementation of evidence-based asthma care in clinical practice. This served the basis to develop and implement the AsthmaTracker, an innovative, patient-centered app designed to change the way asthma care is delivered through patient self-monitoring. The AsthmaTracker was used to monitor asthma symptoms and outcomes, linked to data from air quality sensors, for the PRISMS project that served as the foundation for the CEEHI. Dr. Nkoy is leading the development of a new app (MyChildCMC) for supporting home monitoring of children with medical complexity.
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Adriana Payan-Medina is  a chemical engineering student and biomedical informatics research assistant who was awarded an NIH National Library of Medicine fellowship, during which she will continue to work under the direction of Dr. Facelli, Dr. Riches, and Dr. Gouripeddi, developing informatics methods to understand the impact of air quality in pulmonary and endocrine diseases at high spatial and temporal resolution

Dr. Pirozzi is a physician scientist; a pulmonologist and critical care specialist who focuses on advanced lung diseases. Recent research showed effects of black carbon in environmental air particulate matter, on macrophage activity and exacerbations of COPD; and effects of ambient temperature on CPD symptoms. She has collaborated on other studies examining the effects of the environment on COVID-19 symptoms and pneumonia; and examined interplay between smoking cessation and environmental hygiene on risks for respiratory conditions.
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Dr. Reilly’s research seeks to establish biochemical and molecular mechanisms by which inhaled toxicants such as air pollution affect human health, particularly respiratory health. He is interested in precision pharmacotherapy using variations in drug clearance enzymes as a foundation. His research utilizes population health and environmental exposure data, genomics, and in vitro and animal models to understand how genetics, and the environment affect health outcomes and therapeutic efficacy.
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As a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biomedical Informatics, Dr. Riches conducted research using data science and biomedical informatics approaches to examine the intersection of air pollution/ environmental health, epidemiology and clinical outcomes. She continues that research in her current role, with a focus on obstetrics and newborn outcomes.
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Building on a background in epidemiology and public health nursing, and extensive experience with the CDC and multiple state health departments focused on communicable disease control, lead poisoning prevention, and surveillance of injuries; and experience as a knowleege engineer for Theradoc, a decision support vendor, Dr Staes’ current research is focused on clinical decision support (CDS) and the development of standards to support the use of electronic health records to meet population and public health goals. She has conducted operational research to improve public health case reporting, and integration of clinical and public health systems related to controlled substances and deaths. She recently enhanced infrastructure for COVID-19 reporting, and led research supporting decision making to predict end of life. 
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After completing postgraduate training in internal medicine and pediatrics at Duke University, Dr. Stone was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship where he studied developmental molecular genetics. For several years he ran a medical practice in rural Utah, returning to the University of Utah and Primary Children’s hospital as a board-certified pediatric hospitalist. Dr. Stone’s research utilizes quality improvement, translational science, and implementation approaches. He collaborates with Dr. Nkoy to improve care for children with asthma and other medical complexity. He participates in data-intensive studies using large national databases, including collaborating with CEEHI colleagues to examine gene x drug x environment interactions.
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Dr. Sundar is a physician-scientist and pulmonologist/critical care expert; he is the Medical Director of the Sleep-Wake Center, University of Utah. He is American Board-Certified in Sleep Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care Medicine, and Internal Medicine; and has conducted research in interstitial lung disease and sleep medicine/sleep apnea. He is collaborating with CEEHI colleagues to study interactions between air quality and other environmental influences, on sleep apnea outcomes.

Dr. Sward’s research focuses in Clinical Research Informatics; leveraging her expertise with clinical decision support, computer protocols; standards & structured terminologies. Her research focused on personal health records/consumer informatics/person-generated health data; and she led the PRISMS study leveraging sensors to examine the effects of the environment on health. Dr. Sward is part of the biomedical informatics leadership at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Utah Trial Innovation Center as a part of the NCATS Trial Innovation Network. She is co-investigator and informatics lead at the Utah Data Coordinating Center (CPCCRN network) and is MPI of the Data Coordinating Center for the NIH Helping End Addiction Long-term Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network (HEAL ERN) modeling data for opioid exposures and pain research.
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Join CEEHI

We invite University of Utah faculty, students, and staff to become members of CEEHI.

You will be asked to provide a brief description (150 words or less) of you and your research interests as they relate to CEEHI, and upload an NIH biosketch or CV.

We also request a few pieces of information that we need to post on the CEEHI web site, including a “head shot” image file.

If you have any problems or questions, please contact mollie.cummins@utah.edu.

Apply to Join