Laura Meltzer

Doctoral student

Laura Meltzer started studying medicine at the Heidelberg University in 2011 and soon became interested in Public and Global Health issues. After participating in various electives and short courses regarding medicine in developing countries, tropical diseases and epidemiological methodology she applied to do her medical doctoral thesis in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit of the institute under the supervision of Dr. Sabine Gabrysch. Laura is now a doctoral student in the Junior Research Group “Environment and Health”, a cooperation project between the Heidelberg Center for the Environment and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health.

Through interdisciplinary teamwork in the India- and Chile-based projects she got to broaden her horizon with regards to contents and research methods. The group focuses on human-environmental interactions regarding water, urban development and climate. For her doctoral thesis she is researching how experiences with extreme climate events influence adaptive behavior of individuals, using a flooding event of 2015 in Northern Chile as a case study.

Project

Previous experiences with flooding and its influence on the implementation of adaptation measures in the Huasco Valley, Chile
Project in cooperation with the Junior Research Group „Environment and Health“ of Dr. Juliane Dame of the Heidelberg Center for the Environment