Our Team — C3HE

Meet Our Team

We are a multi-institutional team of physical and social scientists, community leaders, researchers, outreach professionals, and students. We are building community partnerships to advance climate resilience and health equity in the Carolinas.

Leadership

PI Dello is the climate science lead & operations lead. As the Director of the North Carolina State Climate Office at NC State University, she runs the second-largest State Climate Office in the country, which serves a deep bench of diverse stakeholders. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at NC State University. She has a Ph.D in Environmental Sciences from Oregon State University.

PI Rivers is the C3HE equity lead. Rivers is the Senior Social Science advisor in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University. Rivers training is in cognitive psychology with a focus on risk perception and decision making processes. Specifically, his work focuses on the examination of these processes in minority and underserved communities in the context of the natural environment.

PI Runkle is the health lead and an Environmental Epidemiologist at NC State’s North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies. Her research identifies intervention pathways to reduce climate- health impacts. She served as a co-author on the USGCRP’s The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States and a lead author of the NOAA State Climate Summaries. She completed her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of South Carolina and postdoctoral training at Emory.

Kalyn Rosenberg is the C3HE Senior Program Manager at NC State University. She is responsible for coordinating team communication, tracking projects, and reporting outcomes. In addition to collaborating with all members of the C3HE team, Kalyn works closely with the other NOAA CAP/RISA teams on cross-program initiatives. Her career has been focused primarily on community engagement and business partnership initiatives related to climate change and public health. She earned her B.A. in Environmental Studies and Master of Public Health both from the University of Vermont.

Co-Principal Investigators

Co-PI Anoruo is a Plant Physiologist/Ecologist/Environmentalist and faculty in The Department of Biology at South Carolina State University. She is also a Visiting Scientist at Brookhaven National Lab. Her research and community outreach are focused on evidence-based community centered participatory approach to achieving just, equitable and sustainable solutions to food insecurity, climate/energy justice in historically underserved and marginalized frontline communities in South Carolina. Past and current projects revolved around partnering with local grass root/faith-based organizations, state and national environmental organizations.

Co-PI Cawley is the Program Manager for Public Engagement with Science at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science. His work centers around developing programs that facilitate multi-directional learning between stakeholders in science - policymakers, expert scientists, and publics. His climate-related work explores building emotional and intellectual connections to scientific data and content through participatory program design, deliberative public forums, community science projects, oral histories, and listening sessions.

Co-PI Gerald Goins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at her undergraduate alma mater, North Carolina Central University (NCCU) where she received her B.S. in Chemistry. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Medicine (UM, B SOM). Her post-doctoral training was at the NCCU Julius L. Chambers - Biomedical Biotechnology Research Institute in the Neuroscience/Drug Abuse. Her passion is to increase the number of underrepresented minority groups in STEM careers while her research focus is on the effects of emerging contaminants (EC) on the gene expression of the organisms exposed to EC. She assists in the management of grants by serving as Campus PI for the North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation STEM Pathways to Research Alliance, Co-PI to the Excellence in Research: Investigating the Water Quality of the Lumber River and a Co-PI of the Carolinas Collaborative on Climate, Health, and Equity (C3HE). Dr. Gerald-Goins is married to Dr. Gregory D. Goins, and mother to two sons, Daniel, and Kendall.

Co-PI Habron serves as Professor of Sustainability Science in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences at Furman University. Habron teaches courses on Resilience and Adaptation, Sustainability and Social Justice, and serves as an affiliate with David Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities. Habron has a Ph.D in Fisheries Science from Oregon State University.

Co-PI Harrison is the coastal economics specialist for North Carolina Sea Grant and graduate faculty in the College of Natural Resources at NC State University. Harrison applies economic analysis and other social science methods to benefit coastal residents and stakeholders. Her primary duties are applied research and extension to inform coastal decision makers about the intersections between resource management and community economic development. She received her Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management at Oregon State University and M.S. in Environmental and Development Economics from The Ohio State University.

Co-PI Hino is an Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Environment, Ecology and Energy Program (E3P). Her research examines the linkages between natural hazards, governance, and public policy to drive effective and equitable adaptation to climate change, with a particular focus on sea level rise and flood risk. Before UNC, she spent several years working as a climate change adaptation consultant for a range of stakeholders, including local governments, federal agencies, and international development organizations. She received her Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University.

Co-PI Malmin is a policy scientist who studies access and procedural equity issues in health and disaster recovery systems. Areas of specialization include public health emergency response, school recovery after disasters, administrative burden and federal disaster recovery, participatory geographic information systems mapping, and community resilience. She has articles appearing in the Journal of Emergency Management, Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Natural Hazards, Natural Hazards Review, Environmental Health, and Applied Geography.

Co-PI O’Connell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and joint faculty at the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Within the C3HE team, Dr. O'Connell works as the internal program evaluator. Her research and teaching focuses on the intersections of agricultural communities, environmental health, and climate change with a focus on water, agricultural disease, economics, decision-making, and policy. She runs the Socio-Ecological Change Research Lab (SECR Lab) at UNC investigating different aspects of sustainability, agriculture, inequality, water, disasters, adaptation, crisis and environmental conservation and partnering with community organizations for engaged scholarship.

Co-PI Sebastian is an Assistant Professor within the Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill. Her research investigates the natural and anthropogenic drivers of hydrological hazards with a specific focus on modeling the evolution of flood risk in urban and coastal communities using a combination of numerical and statistical models. She received her Ph.D. in Civil and Civil & Environmental Engineering from Rice University and completed her postdoctoral training at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Staff

Jack Buehner is a Project Coordinator and GIS Analyst on the Applied Research team at the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University. He is working with Dr, Geoffrey Habron, Mike Winiski, and Zury Marroquin on C3HE initiatives in South Carolina. In particular, his work focuses on helping municipalities pinpoint flood and heat vulnerabilities and develop solutions to promote and enhance resilience. Jack has a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth and Environmental Science from Furman University.

Cayla Cothron is North Carolina Sea Grant’s coastal planning specialist, located in Raleigh on NC State’s Centennial Campus. She connects science-based information to coastal communities, resource managers, and interest groups in North Carolina and the surrounding region, and works with university researchers, communities, and other stakeholders to translate and apply science to policy and decision-making. Cothron has a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Florida State University and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Colorado Denver. Prior to joining Sea Grant, Cothron worked in long range community and environmental planning in both the private and public sectors in the western U.S.

Zury Marroquin holds the position of GIS Analyst at The Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities, situated at Furman University. Collaborating closely with Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Geoffrey Habron in Greenville, South Carolina, Zury is dedicated to promoting and enhancing climate change resilience within frontline communities. Currently, Zury's primary focus involves assisting the city of Fountain Inn in identifying regions with insufficient tree canopy cover, a crucial step in pinpointing areas most susceptible to extreme heat. Looking ahead, Zury aspires to pursue a master's program in Geology to further her expertise in this field.

Rebecca Ward is the Assistant State Climatologist at the State Climate Office within NC State University. Her work with the C3HE program has primarily centered around partnering with Albemarle Regional Health Services to enhance regional capacity for climate and public health education and awareness, such as through K-12 climate curriculum, harmful algal bloom signage, and planning workshops. A native to eastern North Carolina, Rebecca has a background in meteorology and climatology, and recently completed her doctorate in science education from NC State University. Rebecca enjoys working on projects that bridge climate science and social science.

Trista Welch is a Climate Adaptation Research Coordinator with the C3HE program through a collaboration with NC State University and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) Division of Agriculture & Natural Resources. Her work is focused on community engagement, connecting with EBCI community partners, developing outreach materials, and facilitating research training and workshops. Trista earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and a Master of Business Administration degree from Florida State University. She is very active in community involvement, serving as a Mentor for the Jones Bowman Leadership Award Program, commissioner to the Mother Town Healing Program, and the Big Y community club.

Charlie Reed works as Research Assistant at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies (NCICS) within NC State University. His work with the C3HE program includes research planning, data collection and analysis, around the impacts of climate on health in North Carolina. Charlie earned a B.S. in Biology and a B.S. in Environmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned an M.P.H in epidemiology at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Charlie has experience with community-driven environmental health studies; he worked on the NO ROACH and Green Housing Studies in New Orleans and the GenX Study in Eastern North Carolina.

Mike Winiski is Director of Applied Sustainability Research at the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University. He is working with Geoffrey Habron and Sydney Andersen on C3HE initiatives in South Carolina. Mike specializes in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data visualization. His course in GIS focuses on the interdisciplinary applications of spatial analysis and evaluating visualizations for effectiveness and bias. He holds masters degrees in mapping/spatial analysis (Penn State University) and science education (Wake Forest University). He received his bachelors in chemistry from Furman University.

Students

Haven Cashwell is a Ph.D. student at Auburn University studying Earth System Science. Within the C3HE program, she is working with Dr. Kathie Dello, conducting research on enhancing climate resiliency and climate communication in North Carolina communities. She has previously received a M.S. in Geography from Auburn University and a B.S. in Meteorology and Minor in Environmental Science from North Carolina State University. She is very thankful to be a part of this group and is looking forward to seeing the impact this work will have on the Carolinas.

James Collins is a PhD student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is interested in how social networks and community structure influences capacity to adapt to compound hazards and how social equity is operationalized in planning for disasters. James previously worked professionally as a planning data analyst with the City of Austin, Texas, Watershed Protection Department. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Bachelor of Science in Environmental Geographic Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Helena is a PhD Student in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P) at UNC-Chapel Hill. Within the C3HE team, she is working with Dr. Sebastian and Dr. Hino, using machine learning methods to reconstruct historical flooding footprints for North Carolina. She is studying how exposure to consecutive flood events impacts economic stability and probabilities of migrating for households of different socioeconomic backgrounds. She has a master's degree in environment and sustainability from University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in civil and environmental engineering from University of Delaware.

Alyssa Griffin is a first year graduate student at North Carolina State University in the Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences Department. Alongside Dr. Dello and the C3HE team, she will be investigating flooding in the mountains of western North Carolina. Her research interests are the societal impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. Alyssa is a recent graduate of Plymouth State University where she earned her B.S. in Meteorology.

Bevin Hardy is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is working with Dr. Caela O’Connell on research in Ocracoke, North Carolina which seeks to identify the environmental, economic, and social pressures impacting the community. Her work is focused on human-environment interactions using a mixed-methods approach. She is interested in the impacts of climate change and disasters on coastal communities. She received her BA in environmental science and her MS in sustainability.

Kaitlin Karaffa is a Master’s student at North Carolina State University in the Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department. Within the C3HE team, she is working with Dr. Kathie Dello to determine the physical impacts of compounded drought and extreme precipitation events and how these events are being perceived by those residing in the Carolinas. Her research melds the physical and social science of compound events in North and South Carolina.

Hunter Quintal is an early-career scientist studying weather-related compound hazards who is interested in hazard quantification and risk communication at urban to regional scales. He is currently a PhD student at UNC working with Dr. Antonia Sebastian to improve understanding of the dependence between flood and heat hazards across the US Southeast. His role within the C3HE team is to assess when and where these two hazards have sequentially occurred, evaluate whether the probability of their co-occurrence has changed over recent decades, and disseminate results through community partnerships with the intention to inform adaptation and mitigation efforts. His professional journey led him to Brown University for a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology-Biology, then to Washington D.C. to work as a Hydrogeologist, and eventually to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a Master of Science degree. Over the past two years, he predicted future extreme flooding in eastern North Carolina with hydrologic and hydraulic models.

Lily Raye is a first year PhD student in the Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences department at North Carolina State University. Alongside Dr. Dello, she works with the C3HE team to identify and visualize heat risk metrics throughout North Carolina, including record temperatures and climatological averages. Her future research plans include identifying “hotspots” of extreme heat in the Carolinas and assessing their associated societal and health-related impacts on communities.

Kristen Viera is a PhD student in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is working with Dr. Caela O’Connell, and Dr. Rebecca Ward, partnered with Albemarle Regional Health Services, to use a rapid rural appraisal approach to assess climate vulnerabilities, education, and awareness. Her work also looks at organizational communication and learning about climate justice and water quality. She is interested in research projects that further the efforts of communities and organizations working toward environmental and social justice. She received her B.A. in Environmental Sustainability and recently completed her M.S. in Ecology.

Ruitian Yan is a PhD student in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program (E3P) at UNC-Chapel Hill. Co-advised by Dr. Hino and Dr. Sebastian, Ruitian is interested in studying the social and financial impacts of flooding on housing. Prior to joining UNC, she worked in the financial sector on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and climate risk management. She received her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Brown University.