Varun Goel
University of South Carolina

Dr. Varun Goel is a health and medical geographer specializing in the geospatial determinants of health disparities and the effectiveness of health interventions. He joined the University of South Carolina as an Assistant Professor in Geography, following his PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a postdoctoral research position at the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Goel’s overall research explores how human-environment interactions influence population health risks across diverse global settings, particularly in relation to infectious diseases, and how health interventions can be equitably implemented to mitigate those risks. His current projects include assessing the impact of safe drinking-water interventions in rural Bangladesh, examining the role of climate change and human mobility on malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, and studying swine influenza ecology in the US. As an interdisciplinary population health scientist, Dr. Goel has contributed to several externally funded studies, designing field surveys, incorporating spatial analysis and remote sensing into study designs, and employing diverse geospatial and epidemiological methods related to geostatistics, remote sensing, causal inference, and machine learning. A key aspect of his work involves fostering long-term collaborations across the US and the Global South, and translating research findings into actionable policies through active engagement with policymakers.