Introduction
Speaker: Christa Brelsford, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
Event title: Cities, climate change, and disease. How can science help humanity solve big problems?
Quantifying interactions between social systems and the physical environment we live within has long been a major scientific challenge. A better empirical understanding of dynamic interactions between the physical and natural context and urban social structure is necessary to support predictions of how people and cities will respond to climate change, disease, and other emergent threats, ensure energy and water security for their residents, and to facilitate urban sustainability and resilience.
About the event
In this talk Christa will describe projects applied to Diphtheria cases in the early 1900s, recent COVID-19 cases, and predictions of urban building characteristics. These projects use different datasets, methods, and theoretical backgrounds, but are all aimed at developing empirical strategies to increase our understanding of how social and physical systems are coupled.
Finally, Christa will consider what it would take for the research industry to do the science needed to address our world’s biggest threats.
Tuesday 08 March
