Nina Lam headshotNina Lam

Position: Professor & Abraham Distinguished Professor of Louisiana Environmental Studies, Department of Environmental Sciences

Phone: 225-578-6197

Fax: 225-578-4286

E-mail: [email protected] 

Website: http://www.rsgis.envs.lsu.edu 

Office: 2275 Energy, Coast & Environment Building

Bachelor's Degree(s): B.S.Sc. Geography, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1975

Master's Degrees(s): M.S. Geography, University of Western Ontario, 1976

Ph.D.(s): Ph.D. Geography, University of Western Ontario, 1980

CV: Curriculum Vita of Nina Lam

Research Interests

Geographic information science, remote sensing; spatial analysis, environmental health, disaster resilience, sustainability.

Classes Taught

ENVS 4149 Design of Environmental Management Systems
ENVS 7050 Spatial Modeling of Environmental Data
ENVS 7700 Integrated Environmental Issues
ENVS 7950 Special Topics in Environmental Sciences
GEOG 4045 Environmental Remote Sensing
GEOG 4047 Geographic Information Systems
GEOG 4049 Advanced Computer Cartography
GEOG 7973 Advanced Geographic Information Systems
GEOG 7935 Quantitative Methods for Geographical Analysis

Awards & Honors

2020    American Association of Geographers (AAG) Fellow

2016    University Consortium on Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Fellow

2016    The Inaugural Carolyn Merry Mentoring Award, UCGIS

2011    Outstanding Faculty Research Award, School of the Coast and Environment, LSU

2009    LSU Distinguished Research Master Award

2008    LSU Rainmaker (one of the year’s top 100 research and creative faculty at LSU)

2006    LSU Distinguished Faculty Award

2004    Outstanding Contributions in Remote Sensing Award, Association of American Geographers (AAG) Remote Sensing Specialty Group

2003    Keynote speaker, AAG Spatial Analysis and Modeling Group

2002    Prominent Overseas Scholar, University of Hong Kong

2002    Keynote speaker, AAG GIS Specialty group

1984    The Andrew McNally Award. (To honor the best paper published by the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping in 1983)

Professional Affiliations and Service Activities (Selected)

Service to Federal Organizations – NSF/NRC Expert Meeting on Human Networks and Data Science (2020); NSF Committee of Visitors to review programs within the Social, Behavioral, and Economics Sciences Directorate (2019); review panels for NSF, EPA, NIEHS, NIH, and NASA (over 20); four NRC committees

Editorial boards/associate editors on major geography journals. Guest Editor, International Journal of Geographic Information Science (2011-2012) and Water (2015-20); Associate Editor, Geographical Information Science; Editorial boards of these journals: Geographical Analysis, Cartography and GIS, Annals of the Association of American Geographers (2000-2009), The Professional Geographer (2005-2009), Remote Sensing, Applied Ecology and Environmental Research.

2005 President, University Consortium on Geographic Information Science (UCGIS)

1996-09 External program reviews (UC Riverside; U Connecticut, U Buffalo, U Minnesota, U Georgia)

1999-2001 Program Director, NSF Geography and Regional Science Program

Theses/Dissertations Directed and Completed as Major Professor (numbers only)

Geography: 16 PhD and 15 MS
Environmental Science: 4 PhD and 11 MS (theses)
MS in Engineering Sciences (As Co-chair): 3
MNS (Master of Natural Sciences): 2
Postdocs: 8
Currently serving as major professor of 2 PhD students in Environmental Sciences 


Selected Publications

Books

Xu YJ, Lam NSN, Liu KB. Eds. 2018. Resilience and Sustainability of the Mississippi River Delta as a Coupled Natural-Human System. London: MDPI. (Collected articles from the special issue published in Water).

Quattrochi DA, Wentz E, Lam NSN, Emerson CW. Eds. 2017. Scale in Remote Sensing and GIScience Applications. New York: Routledge. 401p.

LAM NSN, De Cola L, eds. 1993. Fractals in Geography. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 308p. (Reprinted by Blackburn Press in 2002).

Ten Recent Refereed Journal Articles (selected)

* refers to the students/post-doc of whom I was/am major advisor/sponsor.

Zou L, Lam NSN, Shams S, *Cai H, Meyer MA, Yang S, Lee K, Park S, Reams MA. 2019. Social and geographical disparities in Twitter use during Hurricane Harvey. International Journal of Digital Earth. Doi: 10.1080/17538947.2018.1545878

Lam NSN, Xu YJ, Liu KB, Dismukes DE, Reams M, Pace RK, *Qiang Y, Narra S, *Li K, Bianchette TA, *Cai H, *Zou L, *Mihunov V. 2018. Understanding the Mississippi River Delta as a coupled natural-human system: Research methods, challenges, and prospects. Water 2018, 10, 1054; doi:10.3390/w10081054.

Cai H, Lam NSN, Qiang Y, Zou L, Correll R, Mihunov V. 2018. A synthesis of disaster resilience measurement methods and indices. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.07.015.

Lam NSN, *Cheng W, *Zou L, *Cai H. 2018. Effects of landscape fragmentation on land loss. Remote Sensing of Environment 209:253-262.

*Zou L, Lam NSN, *Cai H, *Qiang Y. 2018. Mining Twitter data for improved understanding of disaster resilience. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(5):1422-1441. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2017.1421897

*Cai H, Lam NSN, *Zou L, *Qiang Y. 2018. Modeling the dynamics of community resilience to coastal hazards using a Bayesian network. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(5):1260-1279. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2017.1421896.

*Li K, Lam NSN. 2018. Geographically weighted elastic net: A variable-selection and modeling method under the spatially nonstationary condition. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2018.1425129

*Li K, Lam NSN. 2018. A spatial dynamic model of population changes in a vulnerable coastal environment. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 32(4): 685-710. DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2017.1407415.

*Mihunov V, Lam NSN, *Zou L, Rohli RV, Bushra N, Reams MA, Argote J. 2018. Community Resilience to Drought Hazard in South-Central United States. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108 (3): 739-755. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2017.1372177.

*Qiang Y, Lam NSN, *Cai H, *Zou L. 2017. Changes in exposure to flood hazards in the United States. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 107(6):1332-1350.

Ten Previous Journal Articles (selected)

LAM NSN, Arenas H, Pace RK, LeSage JP, Campanella R. 2012. Predictors of business return in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  PLoS One 7(10), e47935:1-8.

Lam NSN. 2012. Geospatial methods for reducing uncertainties in environmental health risk assessment: challenges and opportunities. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102(5):942-950.

Shu Y., LAM NSN, Reams M. 2010. A new method for estimating carbon dioxide emissions from transportation at fine spatial scales.  Environmental Research Letters 5 (201) 044008 (9p), doi:10.10.88/1748-9326/5/4/044008.

LAM NSN, Pace K, Campanella R, LeSage J, Arenas H. 2009. Business return in New Orleans: Decision making amid post-Katrina uncertainty. PLoS One 4(8):e6765. doi:10.1371/Journal.pone.0006765.

LAM NSN, Arenas H, Li Z, Liu KB. 2009. An estimate of population impacted by climate change along the U.S. coast. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue 56:1522-1526.

*Vinnakota S, LAM NSN. 2006. Socioeconomic inequality of cancer mortality in the United States: a spatial data mining approach. International Journal of Health Geographics 5:9.LAM NSN, Liu K B. 1994. Spread of AIDS in rural America, 1982-1990. Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome 7:485-490.

LAM NSN, Quattrochi DA. 1992. On the issues of scale, resolution, and fractal analysis in the Mapping Sciences.
The Professional Geographer 44(1):89-99.

LAM NSN. 1986. Geographical patterns of cancer mortality in China. Social Science and Medicine 23(3):241-247.

LAM NSN. 1983. Spatial interpolation methods: A review. The American Cartographer 10(2):129-149.

Research Grants Received as the PI since 2010 (Selected list only)

2018-19, Lam NSN, Meyer M, Park SJ, Reams M, Yang SW, Lee KS. 2018. RAPID: The changing roles of social media in disaster resilience: The case of Hurricane Harvey. National Science Foundation. $199,989. 01/01/2018-12/31/2019.

2016-20, Lam NSN, Meyer M, Park SJ, Reams M, Yang SW, Lee KS. 2016. IBSS-L: Understanding social and geographical disparities in disaster resilience through the use of social media.  National Science Foundation. $834,585. 09/01/2016-02/29/2020.

2015-17, Lam NSN, Qiang Y. 2015. A synthesis of resilience measurement methods and indices. Louisiana Sea Grant. $49,940. 01/15/2015-01/15/2017.

2014-16, Lam NSN, Reams M, Rohli R. 2014. Community resilience to drought hazard: An analysis of drought exposure, impacts, and adaptations in south-central United States. U. S. Geological Survey. $254,485. 09/01/2014-08/31/2016.

2012-16, Lam NSN, Liu KB, Reams MA, Rivera-Monroy V, Xu YJ. Pace K. Dismukes D. CNH: Coupled natural-human dynamics in a vulnerable coastal system. National Science Foundation. $1,499,935. 09/01/12-02/28/18.

2010-14, Lam NSN, Reams M. Development of an empirical model for measuring community resilience. U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Science Foundation. $390,028. 09/01/2010-08/31/2014.