About me (after several attempts, still a draft)
I am passionate about using research and engineering to help folks. I have a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering, master's degree in Production Engineering, and PhD degree in Urban and Regional Science. However, I don’t consider myself an expert in any one particular area — I’m more of a generalist. I research to improve practices on risk assessment related to natural hazards with social impacts. The research areas I focus on are at the nexus of the sub-fields of urban geography and human ecology, and include using geographic information science for analyses of risk, urban hazards, and social impacts.
As part of the hurricane evacuation studies, I research hurricane risk on coastal communities. Still learning, I try to use probabilistic causal analysis through influence diagrams, which includes mapping risk for possible better risk communication and to the development of behavioral surveys. Also, I love teaching and preparing presentations. I am privileged to teach Urban Analytical Methods and Planning Methods. At work, I'm a coding and reproducible research enthusiast who tries to employ open-source data and software as much as possible.
Educational Background
Ph.D. Urban and Regional Science, Texas A&M University (LAUP/TAMU), College Station, Texas.
M.S. Production Engineering, Federal University of Sao Carlos (DEP/UFSCar), Brazil.
B.S. Civil Engineering, University of Sao Paulo (EESC/USP), Brazil.
Affiliation
College of Architecture (CoA) at Texas A&M University (TAMU)
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning (LAUP)
Center for Geospatial Sciences, Applications and Technology (GEOSAT)
Research Interests
Research question: what's the risk?
Probabilistic causal analysis through influence diagrams (Bayesian networks)
Spatial analyses of risk, including thematic cartography and geo-visualization
Risk assessment for natural hazards with social impacts (hurricane evacuation planning)
Impact of natural disasters on mental health (suicide risk)
Human geography and the production of space
Community-based participatory research
Skills
R (largely simple features, tidyverse and tidycensus, but also RGDAL and RGEOS)
QGIS (including processing R scripts, GRASS, and OSM geographic data)
Computer generated footprints (buildings polygonization)
Flood and storm surge inundation mapping
Thematic cartography