Research Areas

Welcome to my Research Areas section. My work bridges law, public health, and data science to address violence, trauma, and health disparities, with a focus on historically marginalized communities. I integrate geospatial analysis, advanced statistics, and community-engaged research to inform prevention and policy change.

Thematic Areas

  • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
    Investigating how childhood trauma, neglect, and structural adversity contribute to long-term health, development, and justice outcomes.

  • Community-Based Violence
    Studying the structural and environmental determinants of gun violence and neighborhood-level risk to inform place-based prevention.

  • Intimate Partner & Domestic Violence
    Examining the health and justice impacts of IPV during pregnancy and across the life course, with attention to structural risk factors.

  • Substance Use & Overdose
    Analyzing social, spatial, and policy drivers of opioid overdose and other substance-related harms, with emphasis on service access.

  • Suicide Prevention
    Modeling how environmental, social, and health inequities intersect to shape suicide risk, with a focus on geographic and structural influences.

Focal Populations

  • Sexual and Gender Minorities
    Addressing violence, health disparities, and structural inequities affecting LGBTQ+ populations.

  • Minoritized Communities
    Centering research on racially and ethnically marginalized groups disproportionately impacted by violence and health inequities.

  • Youth
    Focusing on developmental risk, adversity, and justice system involvement among young people.

  • Older Individuals
    Exploring intersections of aging, disability, and structural vulnerability, including violence and access to care.

  • People with Disabilities
    Investigating how social determinants and systemic barriers contribute to violence, neglect, and health disparities.

  • People Who Use Drugs
    Examining the interplay of substance use, social marginalization, and structural risk in shaping health outcomes.

Methodological Expertise

  • Spatial Analysis & GIS
    Mapping neighborhood-level risk, structural inequities, and spatial patterns of violence and health outcomes.

  • Bayesian & Advanced Statistical Modeling
    Applying spatial Bayesian models, multilevel analysis, and predictive modeling to complex social and health issues.

  • Machine Learning & Data Science
    Using machine learning tools, including spatial random forests and AI-driven geospatial analysis, to identify risk patterns and prevention opportunities.

  • Community-Based & Participatory Research
    Integrating community perspectives and lived experience into research design, analysis, and policy translation.

  • Forensic & Legal Geography
    Applying spatial methods to legal investigations and expert witness work focused on structural injustice and environmental harm.

Current Projects

  • The ISSUE Lab
    Founder and Director of the Investigating Spatial Structures in Urban Environments (ISSUE) Lab, using geospatial data science to inform violence prevention and environmental justice efforts.

  • Gun Violence and Structural Inequities in Chicago
    Leading a multi-method spatial analysis of neighborhood predictors of non-fatal firearm injury using spatial random forests and Bayesian models.

  • Opioid Overdose and Environmental Risk in Cook County
    Investigating how green space, urban form, and structural disadvantage shape overdose mortality through spatial modeling.

  • Structural Mitigation in Capital Defense
    Developing expert witness materials that integrate forensic geography and systemic risk analysis to contextualize legal outcomes in death penalty cases.

  • Suicide, Green Space, and Environmental Inequities
    Analyzing the intersection of environmental exposures, structural vulnerability, and suicide risk using spatial Bayesian approaches.

Association between Opioid-Related Injury and Built-Form Indexes Derived from Remote Sensing Data

Association between Opioid-Related Injury and Built-Form Indexes Derived from Remote Sensing Data

This project examines how built environment characteristics and neighborhood disadvantage interact to shape fatal opioid overdose risk in Cook County, Illinois. Using satellite-derived indicators—including urban development intensity, nighttime light emissions, and vegetative greenness—alongside spatial Bayesian models, we identify geographic clusters of elevated overdose mortality and assess environmental and structural risk factors at fine spatial scales.

opioid-crisis spatial-epidemiology remote-sensing bayesian-modeling urban-health environmental-justice chicago overdose
AI-Driven Technology, Geospatial Analysis, Social Vulnerability, and Child Neglect

AI-Driven Technology, Geospatial Analysis, Social Vulnerability, and Child Neglect

This project uses AI-driven analysis of street-level images to examine how neighborhood environments—such as green space, lighting, and land use—shape child neglect risk. By linking detailed, objective environmental data to neglect rates, the study highlights how social and physical neighborhood conditions contribute to child well-being and can inform targeted prevention efforts.

academic ai machine-learning child-neglect spatial-analysis
Association between firearm injury and built-form

Association between firearm injury and built-form

This project uses built-form indexes derived from satellite data to investigate how urban structure and human activity intensity relate to firearm injury risk in Chicago.

firearm-violence remote-sensing flexurban chicago
Development and Spatial Validation of a Random Forest Prediction Model for Firearm-Related Injury Risk in Chicago Census Tracts

Development and Spatial Validation of a Random Forest Prediction Model for Firearm-Related Injury Risk in Chicago Census Tracts

This project develops and spatially validates a random forest model predicting non-fatal firearm injury.

bim python structural-engineering automation construction-technology real-time-analysis