Principal Investigator
Alexandra K. Heaney, PhD
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor, Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health; Associate Director, MPH Program. Climate and health epidemiologist.
People
The CARE Research Group brings together researchers in epidemiology, climate and dust science, and computational modeling. We run biweekly lab meetings, weekly check-ins, and a shared writing hour.
Principal Investigator
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor, Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health; Associate Director, MPH Program. Climate and health epidemiologist.
Close faculty collaborators
Assistant Professor, UC San Diego
Environmental health researcher studying air pollution, temperature, and population health.
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
Environmental epidemiologist and longtime collaborator on our Valley fever and blastomycosis research.
Postdoctoral scholars
Postdoctoral Scholar
Developed the GAVE exposure-assessment method; leads environmental epidemiology analyses. Presenting at the 2026 ISEE and AGU meetings.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Bio coming soon.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University
Environmental epidemiologist studying how climate and environmental change affect infectious disease and population health.
Doctoral students
Doctoral Student
Bio coming soon.
Doctoral Student · Global Health (PH JDP)
I am a 3rd-year Public Health Joint Doctoral Program student at UCSD and SDSU in the Global Health track. My research is centered in spatial epidemiology. Within the CARE Lab, I am currently studying global bikeshare systems and their resilience to climate change. In my free time, I like to play soccer, tennis, and disc golf and hang out with my wife and two cats!
Students & researchers
Student Researcher
Bio coming soon.
Student Researcher
Bio coming soon.
Student Researcher
Bio coming soon.
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Bio coming soon.
Scripps Climate Science & Policy (MAS)
As a graduate of Scripps' Climate Science & Policy Master's Program, I worked with CARE on a public health data analysis on the co-exposure of extreme heat and dust at California's Salton Sea. I'm currently working for Zero Waste San Diego and hope to achieve a publication for our research together!
Alumni
Undergraduate mentees from the group have gone on to MPH programs at UCLA and USC. We are proud to support trainees into the next stage of their careers.
Collaborators
Our research is conducted in partnership with the California Department of Public Health, the Arizona Department of Health Services, the UC Dust Consortium, and collaborators at UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, UC Riverside, UC Merced, Tecnológico de Monterrey, TU Delft, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography — alongside community partners Unidas por Salud and Los Amigos de la Comunidad.
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Gallery
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