NEWS
2025
May 2025
Our new paper on analyzing coastal flood recovery aided by resident mitigation behavior is published in Natural Hazards.
Dr. Shao was selected as a THRIVE fellow by the Institute for Social Science Research.
April 2025
Our new paper on stakeholder compound flood hazard communication and decision making is published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
February 2025
Our new paper investigating the feasibility of adopting virtual reality as a method for natural hazard risk communication is published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Both Hemal and Evan successfully defended their dissertations. Congratulations!
2024
December 2024
Our new paper using machine learning techniques to simulate flood risk is published in npj: Natural Hazards.
November 2024
our new paper examining how disability and mobility aid affect travel behavior is published in Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspective.
September 2024
Dr. Shao’s analysis article based on her research lab’s work is published on the Conversation.
Dr. Shao is listed among the world’s top 2% scientists by Stanford/Elsevier ranking.
August 2024
The Alabama Water Institute (AWI) features our newly awarded $5.8 million NSF EPSCoR research project.
May 2024
Our new paper proposing a comprehensive framework integrating flood susceptibility and social vulnerability to assess flood risk is published in the Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis
Dr. Shao visited and gave a talk at the Center for Geospatial Sciences, Applications, and Technology, Geospatial Exploration and Resolution Lab, and GIScience for Resilience Research Group at Texas A&M University.
2023
September 2023
Dr. Shao gave a seminar talk at the Department of Geography of the National University of Singapore.
August, 2023
Our new paper on Americans uptake of monovalent COVID-19 booster is published online in Vaccine.
Our new paper on land use land cover change and temperature rise is published online in the Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis
July, 2023
Dr. Shao was awarded the University of Alabama College of Arts & Sciences Leadership Board Fellowship.
June, 2023
The website of Our Water-R2O: National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) Program goes live! Graduate students with research interests in hydrological science, water decision making, and applying machine learning in water research are particularly welcome to apply for this program!
May, 2023
Dr. Shao has been selected as one of the Alabama Water Institute faculty fellows.
Our new paper examining the influence of carbon dependency, social capital, and political orientation was published in Society & Natural Resources.
Our new paper using participatory GIS to measure accessibility for people with movement disabilities was published in Applied Geography.
Our new paper identifying effective hurricane risk communication tools was published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
April, 2023
Our new paper analyzing how climate extremes along with COVID-`19 impact water pollution complaints was published in npj Clean Water.
Dr. Shao has been awarded tenure and promotion to associate professor.
February, 2023
Dr. Shao is accepting applications for a Ph.D on the intersection of hazards, vulnerability, and risk decision making.
2022
September, 2022
Our new project on assessing nature based solution to mitigate flood impacts and enhance resilience has been funded by NOAA
The University of Alabama, Department of Geography in collaboration with the Alabama Water Institute (AWI), seeks candidates for a cluster hire of three tenure-track appointments at the rank of Assistant Professor starting August 16, 2023.
Dr. Shao is accepting application for a Ph.D on coastal community resilience.
Auburn University News reported on our awarded grant from the Alabama Center of Excellence.
July, 2022
UA News reported on our newly awarded NSF Research Traineeship grant, or NRT
April, 2022
Dr. Shao’s Ph.D student Hemal Dey won 2nd place in student paper presentation competition at the American Water Resources Association Annual Conference.
Dr.Shao’s graduate student Musfiq Bhuiya won University of Alabama Outstanding Thesis Award.
Our paper on disaster resilience in New Orleans is published online in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
March, 2022
Our paper on community vulnerability to floods and hurricanes along the Gulf Coast of the United State has been recognized as a top cited paper in Disasters.
February, 2022
Our new paper on vaccine uptake among Americans is published in Vaccine.
Congratulations to Musfiq on winning the university-wide outstanding thesis award!
2021
December, 2021
Our new paper on risk perceptions of earthquake and knowledge about earthquake response among movement challenged persons is published in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Our new paper on pro-environmental behaviors in Copenhagen is published online in Cities.
UA Arts & Sciences Dean’s postdoc position.
October, 2021
Our paper on public interest in earthquakes has been published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
July, 2021
UA news reported on our COVID-19 research.
Our analysis article reflecting on the year of COVID-19 has been published in the Conversation.
Our paper on public support for COVID-19 mitigation has been published in the International Journal of Public Health.
June, 2021
Our research on flood resilience among coastal communities is featured in UA News.
March, 2021
Musfiq successfully defended his thesis, congratulations!
Evan successfully defended his thesis, congratulations!
February, 2021
Our paper “Understanding the influence of contextual factors and individual social capital on American public mask wearing in response to COVID-19″ has been published in Health & Place.
Dr. Shao is accepting application for a Ph.D in human dimension of flood hazards.
August, 2020
Our new paper on retrospective and prospective evaluations of drought and flood has been published in Science of the Total Environment.
July, 2020
Our new paper on risk perceptions of COVID-19 has been published in Social Science & Medicine.
Dr. Shao attended the 45th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop and Researchers Meeting.
June, 2020
Dr. Shao attended the Enabling the Next Generation of Hazards and Disasters Researchers Workshop.
February, 2020
UA News reported on our paper about flash flood hazards.
January, 2020
Dr. Shao presented a paper on retrospective and prospective evaluations of drought and flood at the 2020 annual conference of the American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA.
Our new paper about religiosity and public perceptions of climate change has been published in Geographic Review.
2019
December, 2019
Dr. Shao has been selected as a Fellow for the National Science Foundation-funded Enabling the Next Generation of Hazards and Disasters Researchers Fellowship Program.
Dr. Shao presented a paper at the annual conference of the Society for Risk Analysis, Arlington, VA.
October, 2019
Dr. Shao was invited to participate in a panel discussion on flood risk communication at the Earth from Space Institute inaugural symposium “Making Communities More Resilient to Extreme Flooding” in Columbia, Maryland.
Dr. Shao presented a poster at the 2019 Alabama Water Resources Conference at Orange Beach, AL.
August, 2019
Dr. Shao becomes an associate editor for Palgrave Communications (a Nature journal).
June, 2019
Dr. Shao presented a paper at the 2019 Annual Conference of the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
Our new paper about community vulnerability to flooding and hurricanes along the U.S. Gulf Coast was published in Disasters
May, 2019
Dr. Shao presented a poster at the workshop on Correlated Extremes at Columbia University, New York, NY
April, 2019
Our new paper about flood risk mitigation decision mechanism was published on Environmental Research letters
Dr. Shao presented a paper at the 2019 Annual Conference of the American Association of Geographers in Washington, D.C.
March, 2019
Dr. Shao was quoted in a New York Times article on how weather gets weaponized in climate change messaging
February, 2019
Dr. Shao participated in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Gulf Research Program Fellow Collaboration Workshop, at the 2019 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Ecosystem Science Conference, New Orleans, LA
2018
December, 2018
Our new paper about flood hazards and perceptions in two cities in Alabama was published in the Journal of Hydrology
September, 2018
Dr. Shao was quoted in a Medium featured story on the science of evacuation psychology
August, 2018
Dr. Shao joined the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama as an assistant professor.