Mostafijur Rahman, PhD, MS

Mostafijur Rahman is an assistant professor of environmental health sciences in the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. His research interests lie in leveraging large longitudinal environmental health data to develop a data-driven solution for climate and health.

Relying on multidisciplinary approaches in exposure assessment and environmental epidemiology, he used a combination of publicly available air pollution and meteorological data (temperature, relative humidity, etc.) and newly acquired and digitized public health data to evaluate the impact of environmental exposures on various health outcomes, including neurodevelopment, mental health, and cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity, and mortality, among the citizens of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and California, the two most climate vulnerable regions. The work yielded significant evidence of the negative health effects of air pollution sources and compositions coupled with the simultaneous occurrence of high heat and air pollution, temperature increases, and temperature variability.

He is also the principal investigator of a project funded by the National Academies of Sciences to study the cumulative impacts of various climate-induced exposures (such as heat, humidity, precipitation, drought, floods, and tropical storms) on the mental health of residents in the Gulf South region of the United States.

Rahman earned his PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from New York University School of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Southern California. His work has been featured in prestigious news outlets such as Time Magazine, NBC News, Reuters, TODAY, Global News, The Hill, US News and World Report, Scientific American, and The Conversation.

Today, Rahman is applying data science techniques, including machine learning and advanced statistical modeling, to examine the spatial temporal trend of meteorological data and its relationship with health data to contribute to evidence-based policymaking and delivery of actionable public health interventions.