Marya Ghazipura Defends Dissertation

Dr. Marya Ghazipura, graduate assistant in the Health, Environment, and Policy program, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, “Effects of Air Pollution on Interstitial Lung Diseases,” at the end of May. Her research investigated the impact of ambient air pollution on disease progression and hospitalization among patients with interstitial lung disease living in the Intermountain West. The air-pollution exposures were assigned using advanced exposure-assessment techniques that combined satellite, model, and regulatory monitoring data generated in collaboration with researchers at George Washington University. Significant impacts were observed for clinically significant decrements in lung function and increased risk of hospitalization associated with elevated air-pollution exposures. This research adds valuable evidence for the understudied environmental-risk factors for this significant group of respiratory diseases.

Special thanks to her dissertation committee: Kevin Cromar (NYU Marron Institute); Lorna Thorpe; Yu Chen; Yongzhao Shao (NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Population Health and Department of Environmental Medicine); Luis Angel (NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Medicine and Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery); and Cheryl Pirozzi (University of Utah).