Biography
Dr. Li’s primary research areas include Geographical Information Systems (GIS), spatial statistics, environmental health, and social inequality. Her research involves topics on socioeconomic inequalities, health and health care disparities, obesity, retail location analysis, environmental pollution and cancer outbreak, as well as geospatial modeling.
Her current research focus on: 1) the interactions between social and environmental disparities and children’s behaviors, psychosocial well beings, and weight status; 2) impacts of social network on dietary behaviors and participation in physical activity; 3) food environment assessment (e.g. food retailers, community/youth gardens); 4) environmental pollution and health disparity in China; and 5) geospatial modeling (e.g. multilevel modeling, agent-based model, residual kriging).
Yingru Li received her Master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems at University of Cincinnati (2006) and obtained her Ph.D. degree in Geography at University of Utah (2012). Before joining UCF in August 2015, she spent three years on the geography faculty at Auburn University.
Research Interests
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
- Social and environmental inequality
- Health disparities
- Obesity
- Retail location analysis
- Environmental pollution and water quality
- Geospatial modeling
