Yanni Cao, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher
Environmental Health Sciences

Email
cao.1637@osu.edu
Office
Cunz Hall, 1841 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210
Links
Yanni Cao

Biography

Yanni Cao is a postdoctoral researcher in Environmental Health Sciences at The Ohio State University. She earned her PhD in human geography from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2021 and subsequently completed postdoctoral training at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Hong Kong before joining Ohio State in 2024.

Her research focuses on environmental and spatial epidemiology, with particular interests in how environmental exposures, climate-related hazards, natural and built environments, and social vulnerability influence population health and healthy aging. She integrates geospatial analysis, epidemiologic and statistical methods, and interpretable machine-learning approaches with large-scale environmental and population health data. Her current work examines topics including air pollution and wildfire smoke, climate extremes, drinking-water contaminants, natural environments, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Her broader research goal is to characterize spatial and population-level variation in environmental health risks, identify vulnerable populations, and generate evidence that can inform environmental health interventions and public health policy.

Education

Ph.D.
Human Geography, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2021
M.Ed.
Subject Teaching (Geography), Beijing Normal University, 2014
B.S.
Geographic Science, Northwest Normal University, 2012

Research interests

Environmental health, environmental epidemiology, climate and health, air pollution and wildfire smoke, environmental exposures and population health, ecosystem services, natural and built environments, population vulnerability to environmental exposures, geospatial analysis and interpretable machine learning.

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