Dr. Zhen Cong

Zhen Cong is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Sciences in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University. She used to serve as Professor and Director of the Climate and Health Initiative in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was previously on the faculty of Texas Tech University and the University of Texas at Arlington; for the latter, she also served as Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs as well as Ph.D. program director.

Her research focuses on using convergent integrated frameworks and approaches to examine older adults’ vulnerability and resilience to disasters and community resilience as well as social, health, and environmental disparities related to disasters. Cong has conducted a series of research projects related natural disasters especially hurricanes and tornadoes to address critical issues relevant to health disparities, such as exposure to risks, risk perception and communication, access and response to warnings, mitigation behaviors, and the recovery process.

She is an inaugural cohort member of the National Institutes of Health Climate and Health Scholars and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. She is the Associate Editor of Statistics for Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Marriage and Family and that of Research on Aging. She is also serving as a committee member of the National Academies Committee on State-of-the-Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment.

She received Ph.D. in gerontology from the School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California.