Ivan Ramirez

Overview: I am a geographer whose research focuses on the intersections of climate change, global and urban health, disasters, and community engagement. As an avid climate-health-society researcher, my scholarship strives to elucidate how communities interact with the many facets of climate and how those interactions ultimately influence the health and social vulnerability of populations and places, including inequities across and between communities. I am also interested in understanding how public health and communities respond to and cope with weather, water, and climate-related hazards and disasters, as well as the ethical implications of impacts. Regionally, my research has focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, but generally I am concerned with communities in the Global South and distressed neighborhoods in the United States. I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences at University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver). I am also a Research Affiliate with the Consortium for Capacity Building (CCB) at University of Colorado Boulder since 2009. Previously, I was an Instructor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at CU Denver, and prior to that, I was an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Eugene Lang College, The New School. I have also taught courses at the Colorado School of Public Health (CSU). I have a Ph.D. in Geography from Michigan State University and a M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University.

Research: In my dissertation, I examined the geographic impacts of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and social vulnerability on epidemic cholera in northern Peru. My main findings, which are published in Weather, Climate and Society, GeoJournal and Ecohealth, challenged the current paradigm of when and how climate impacted the cholera outbreak in Peru. In addition, I conducted a community-engaged pilot study which focused on participatory action research to address air quality risk in several neighborhood parks in northern Brooklyn, NY. My current research focuses on climate-health interactions, syndemic vulnerability and multi-disease risk, both infectious diseases (e.g., cholera, malaria) and chronic health-conditions (asthma, diabetes), as well as contribute to a USAID-funded project for ENSO 'readiness', mapping and disaster improvisation ('zero-order responders'). In fall of 2019, I completed a pilot project (co-PI) with University of Northern Colorado (lead PI), funded by the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, that conducted a spatial analysis of mental health issues and housing affordability in Colorado and associations with social determinants of health and healthcare accessibility.

Teaching: As a teacher and scholar, I am committed to cross-disciplinary public and environmental health education that emphasizes spatial thinking (geography), interdisciplinarity, ethics, and community engagement. I employ case-based and problem-based teaching approaches to foster student engagement and utilize GIS and web-based tools to teach students about geospatial analysis of health and data visualization.