Cities, climate change, and disease: How can science help humanity solve big problems?

Join us for our Tech Talk on Cities, climate change, and disease with guest speaker Dr. Christa Brelsford from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Quantifying interactions between social systems and the physical environment we live within has long been a major scientific challenge. A better empirical understanding of dynamic interactions between the physical and natural context and urban social structure is necessary to support predictions of how people and cities will respond to climate change, disease, and other emergent threats, ensure energy and water security for their residents, and to facilitate urban sustainability and resilience. In this talk Christa will describe research focusing on Diphtheria cases in the early 1900s, recent COVID-19 cases, and predictions of the urban built environment. These projects use different datasets, methods, and theoretical backgrounds, but are all aimed at developing empirical strategies to increase our understanding of how social and physical systems are coupled. Finally, Christa will describe the science she thinks we need to address our world’s biggest threats.