Postdocs
Peng Chen
Peng Chen
CNTH Team Member
Wilkes Postdoctoral Fellow (2026- )
Host Department: School of Environment, Society and Sustainability (ESS)
Dr. Peng Chen is an urban environmental scholar. He earned a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. His research examines interactions among built environments, climate-related exposures, and public health. He also studies how urban environmental planning can make protection from climate hazards and access to adaptation resources more equitable across sociodemographic groups.
Estrella Hererra-Molina
Estrella Hererra-Molina
CNTH Team Member
Wilkes Postdoctoral Fellow (2026- )
Host Department: Sociology and Criminology
Estrella Herrera-Molina’s postdoctoral research examines how dust events, ozone, and wildfire smoke affect hospital and emergency department visits. She currently studies these combined exposures along the Wasatch Front and in dust-prone counties of the Southwest. Before coming to Utah, she was a postdoctoral scholar and project scientist at UC Merced. She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2021. Her dissertation linked air pollution after dust events to hospitalizations for neurodegenerative, cognitive, and mental diseases. She also holds an M.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies from UTEP and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Chihuahua, México.