Assistant Research Professor
Environmental and Occupational Health, Urban Health Collaborative
mb4544@drexel.edu
Download CV

Degrees

PhD, Geography, University of Minnesota
BS, Geography and GIS, Belarusian State University

Bio

Maryia Bakhtsiyarava is Assistant Research Professor in Drexel's Urban Health Collaborative and the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health.

She is an interdisciplinary researcher focusing on understanding the role of climate change on health and health disparities. Dr. Bakhtsiyarava is particularly interested in exposures such as ambient temperature and green space. Her work uses methods from geographic information systems (GIS), spatial data science, epidemiology, and demography.

Dr. Bakhtsiyarava received her PhD in Geography at the University of Minnesota, where she was also a trainee in the inaugural cohort of population training program at the Minnesota Population Center. At the Minnesota Population Center she worked on some of the world’s largest and most complex projects that link global population data with environmental and administrative boundary data. As part of that work, Dr. Bakhtsiyarava developed new methods and workflows to address several scientific problems, including a reproducible research workflow for creating reproductive health variables from the reproductive health calendar of the Demographic and Health Survey Program (DHS) for tens of countries, the creation of climatic contextual variables that were subsequently linked to DHS, and dealing with semantic and geometric uncertainty in spatial data.

Research Interests

• Environmental Exposures
• Climate Change
• Urban Health
• Health Disparities
• GIS and Spatial Data Science
• Demography

Publications

Bakhtsiyarava, M., Moran, M., Ju, Y., Zhou, Y., Rodríguez, D.A., Dronova, I., Pina, F., de Matos, V.P., & Skaba, D.A. (2024). Potential drivers of urban green space availability in Latin American cities. Nature Cities, 1-11.

Bakhtsiyarava, M., Ju, Y., Moran, M., Rodríguez, D. A., Dronova, I., Delclòs-Alió, X., Moore, K., Castillo-Riquelme, M., & Anza-Ramirez, C. (2024). Associations between urban greenspace and depressive symptoms in Mexico’s cities using different greenspace metrics. Applied Geography, 164, 103219.

Ramarao, M. V. S., Arunachalam, S., Sánchez, B. N., Schinasi, L. H., Bakhtsiyarava, M., Caiaffa, W. T., ... & Rodríguez, D. A. (2024). Projected changes in heatwaves over Central and South America using high-resolution regional climate simulations. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 23145.

Slovic, A. D., Indvik, K., Martins, L. S., Kephart, J. L., Swanson, S., Quistberg, D. A., Moran, M., Bakhtsiyarava, M., … & Roux, A. V. D. (2024). Climate hazards in Latin American cities: Understanding the role of the social and built environments and barriers to adaptation action. Climate Risk Management, 100625.

Schinasi, L. H., Bakhtsiyarava, M., Sánchez, B. N., Kephart, J. L., Ju, Y., Arunachalam, S., Gouveia, N., Caiaffa, W. T., O’Neill, M. S., & Dronova, I. (2023). Greenness and excess deaths from heat in 323 Latin American cities: Do associations vary according to climate zone or green space configuration? Environment International, 108230.

Ju, Y., Dronova, I., Rodriguez, D. A., Bakhtsiyarava, M., & Farah, I. (2023). Recent greening may curb urban warming in Latin American cities of better economic conditions. Landscape and Urban Planning, 240, 104896.

Bakhtsiyarava, M., Schinasi, L., Sánchez, B.N., Dronova, I., Kephart, J.L, Ju, Y., Gouveia, N., Caiaffa, W., O’Neill, M.S., Yamada, G., Arunachalam, S., Diez Roux, A.V., & Rodríguez, D.A. (2023). Modification of temperature-related human mortality by area-level socioeconomic and demographic characteristics in Latin American cities. Social Science & Medicine, 317, 115526.

Bakhtsiyarava, M., Ortigoza, A., Sánchez, B.N., Braverman-Bronstein, A., Kephart, J.L., Lopez, S.R., Rodriguez, J. and Diez Roux, A.V. (2022). Ambient temperature and term birthweight in Latin American cities. Environment International, p.107412.

Kephart, J. L., Sánchez, B. N., Moore, J., Schinasi, L. H., Bakhtsiyarava, M., Ju, Y., ... & Rodríguez, D. A. (2022). City-level impact of extreme temperatures and mortality in Latin America. Nature Medicine, 1-6.

López-Olmedo, N., Stern, D., Bakhtsiyarava, M., Pérez-Ferrer, C., & Langellier, B. (2022). Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with the Mexican Diet: Identifying Social Groups With the Largest Carbon Footprint. Frontiers in Nutrition, 559.

Grace, K., Verdin, A., Brown, M., Bakhtsiyarava, M., Backer, D. and Billing, T. (2022). Conflict and climate factors and the risk of child acute malnutrition among children aged 24– 59 months: a comparative analysis of Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. Spatial Demography, pp.1-30.

Bakhtsiyarava, M. and Grace, K. (2021). Agricultural production diversity and child nutrition in Ethiopia. Food Security, 13(6), pp.1407-1422.

Bakhtsiyarava, M., Williams, T. G., Verdin, A., & Guikema, S. D. (2021). A nonparametric analysis of household-level food insecurity and its determinant factors: exploratory study in Ethiopia and Nigeria. Food Security, 13(1), 55-70.

Randell, H., Grace, K. and Bakhtsiyarava, M. (2021). Climatic conditions and infant care: implications for child nutrition in rural Ethiopia. Population and Environment, 42(4), pp.524- 552.

Bakhtsiyarava, M., Grace, K., & Nawrotzki, R. (2018). Climate and Birthweight: Investigating Agricultural livelihoods in Kenya and Mali. American Journal of Public Health 108(Suppl 2), S144–S150. DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304128.

See a full list of Dr. Bakhtsiyarava's peer-reviewed research articles on Google Scholar.