Mark H. Weir, PhD

Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences

Core Faculty - Ohio State Sustainability Institute

Senior Lecturer - College of Medicine, Griffith University

Director - Ecology Epidemiology and Population Health Program, Infectious Disease Institute

Environmental Health Sciences

Mark Weir

"If there is one thing I've learned in my years on this planet, it's that the happiest and most fulfilled people I've known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self-interest." — John Glenn

 

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.” — Epictetus

 

"A life in service of something greater — focusing on the positive improvements and better virtues of our species — that is a well-constructed career." — Mark H. Weir

Contact

1841 Neil Ave.
426 Cunz Hall
Columbus, OH 43210
Email: weir.95@osu.edu
Phone: 614-292-4066
View CV
Home college/unit: College of Public Health - Sustainable and Resilient Economies Discovery Theme

My lab is the Engineering Better Decisions Laboratory (EBD lab). At EBD we are driven to understand how to live more sustainably on our planet, in our societies and in our infrastructure.

As a core faculty member of the Sustainability Institute, I encourage all my students to incorporate questions about how sustainable or resilient the system we are working within are. With these tenets in mind, we want to answer how to protect human health from exposure to hazards in the environment in a sustainable and resilient manner.

We focus in the boundary area between engineering and public health advancing a methodology called quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) and broader mechanistic risk modeling methods. This means that we develop computational models and data needed for those models to describe the microbial environment, how people interact with these environments, and how people's decisions influence health risks they experience.

For example, how can you make better decisions on how to protect people from Legionella pneumophila in buildings? You have many options, few work for long; but why? At EBD we investigate how to model biofilm dynamics better, how to manage drinking water systems better, and generate data to feed those models.  

We work in similar questions for healthcare associated infections, water use in agriculture, COVID-19 response, and cumulative risks – when you’re exposed to both chemical and microbial hazards.

I’m an Environmental Engineering, and Environmental Health Scientist by career progression. Mentoring students is the best part of my job, hopefully you can join the lab one day.