Hello,
I’m Nina Flores, a PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, expecting to graduate in the Summer of 2025. I am passionate about environmental justice and health equity, especially in the context of a changing climate.
Throughout my PhD, I have had the opportunity to gain fundamental skills for an environmental health scientist including: applying advanced statistical and geostatistical methods and designs; processing spatial data using R, Google Earth Engine, and Python; conceptualizing exposures; applying environmental justice and climate justice frameworks; applying causal inference frameworks and methodology; and understanding the physiology of chronic diseases like CVD and asthma.
My research has focused mainly on two exposures– power outages and mold – that reflect environmental injustices that may worsen with a changing climate. In my work, I also focus on better understanding asthma and its relationship with environmental exposures, including and beyond power outages and mold.
Click any of these topic areas below to read more about my completed and ongoing work. Check out the press articles below as well.
For a full list of my publications, check out my google scholar page.
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recent work (click below!)
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recent work (click below!) 𓆏
Press
BBC News
"Power outages can be deadly, and medically vulnerable, socioeconomically vulnerable, and marginalised groups may be disproportionately impacted or less prepared… Climate and energy policy must equitably address power outages", a subsequent paper on the power crisis stressed.
Bloomberg
“We’re focusing on New York state, but power outages are a growing problem nationally,” says Nina Flores, a doctoral student at Columbia University and lead author on the study, which was published Wednesday in PLOS Climate. She points to both the nation’s aging electric grid and damages from storms made increasingly severe by climate change.
The Conversation, self-published
“In New York City, we found that heat-, precipitation- and wind-driven outages occurred more frequently in socially vulnerable communities, including in Harlem, Upper Manhattan, the South Bronx and eastern Queens. This matters because socially vulnerable neighborhoods have higher poverty rates and lower-quality housing. Community members may lack access to health care or suffer from underlying health conditions.”
News Center Maine, NBC affiliate
But radical changes may be necessary to prevent future degradation of the Maine grid, Nina Flores a researcher at Columbia University, said Monday.
"Our grid is very aged, most components of it are … fifty, sixty, seventy years old," Flores said. "Having this repeated damage from different events … that’s contributing to what we’re seeing now."
Contact me
If you would like to reach me to inquire about my work, please fill out the form below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
