Dr. Georgia Kayser

Biography

Georgia Kayser is an Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Health at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Deputy Director of the UC Global Health Institute Center for Planetary Health. Her research focuses on adolescent children’s environmental health, water quality, and environmental health disparities. She has conducted studies to identify environmental risk factors and access issues related to safe sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) services across 20 countries including the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Her methodological expertise includes cross-sectional studies, formative research, experimental approaches, and geospatial analysis to inform environmental health programs and policy. Dr. Kayser is currently conducting NIEHS funded research on pesticide exposures and mental health among children near pesticide spray sites in Ecuador, and is also involved in a NIDA funded study examining WaSH access among people who inject drugs and those experiencing homelessness along the US-Mexico border. She has previously worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Carolina in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering. Dr. Kayser holds a PhD from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she concentrated in Development Economics, and a B.S. in Policy Analysis from Cornell University.

Research Interests