Rima Habre is an Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences in the Division of Environmental Health at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. She also holds an affiliated appointment with the USC Spatial Sciences Institute in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
A native of Beirut, Lebanon, Habre completed her undergraduate studies at the American University of Beirut and then moved to Cyprus to complete the Master of Science program in Environmental Health at the Cyprus International Institute for the Environment and Public Health in association with the Harvard School of Public Health.
In 2007 she joined the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts where she completed her Doctor of Science degree in Environmental Health with Dr. Petros Koutrakis.
Her expertise is in environmental exposure assessment, especially to mixtures of air pollutants and their sources. Her research interests revolve around:
1) exposure assessment to complex air pollution mixtures integrating measurements and modeling;
2) use of mHealth technologies, including real-time environmental sensors, geolocation and data integration methods to accurately predict personal exposure across time-scales and micro-environments; and
3) epidemiological investigations of the association between air pollution exposures and respiratory outcomes.
In the NIH-funded “Life Course Approach to Developmental Repercussions of Environmental Agents on Metabolic and Respiratory Health” (LA DREAMERs) project, Habre directs the Exposure Assessment Cores in the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) initiative.
She also directs the Maternal and Developmental Risks from Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) Center, which is working to improve health in communities overburdened by pollution and other environmental factors that contribute to health disparities. The MADRES Center is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (MIMHD) and the National Center for Environmental Research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). See the story map on how COVID-19 is affecting MADRES neighborhoods.
In addition, Habre co-leads the Real-Time Air Pollution and Asthma Study project of the Los Angeles Pediatric Research with Integrated Sensor Monitoring Systems (PRISMS) Center, an mHealth research study on the asthma patient population.
