M. Luke Smith

Luke Smith is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology and a research associate in the Social Science Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University.  He is an environmental epidemiologist and studies climate driven exposures such as storms, heatwaves, and forest fires and diverse health outcomes including ischemic heart disease, asthma, and preterm birth. His work also addresses the way social factors are determinants of health such as the role structural racism plays in differential outcomes of preterm birth. He strives to work across the domains of traditional epidemiological statistical models, spatial modelling of exposures, and he has also worked to develop a demography toolkit as a Population Studies Trainee at the Minnesota Population Center.