Sangwon Lee

Sangwon Lee CV (PDF)

Sangwon Lee is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research bridges social work, public health, and environmental justice. She examines how weather-related hazards—particularly extreme heat and tornadoes—intersect with Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) such as transportation, healthcare access, housing, and nutrition to create layered inequities in exposure and health outcomes. Her work centers on underserved populations, including people with disabilities, individuals whose primary language is not English, and unhoused communities. For example, her dissertation focused on public bus riders’ experiences during extreme heat, demonstrating how extreme weather events and social conditions jointly affect health and adaptive capacity among people who frequently face overlapping challenges of being low-income, living with disabilities, and lacking access to private vehicles. Through interdisciplinary collaboration and community partnerships, she integrates spatial analysis and field-based inquiry to illuminate lived realities often overlooked in disaster research, with the goal of advancing equity, resilience, and social justice.

Research Interests

• Decision-making and adaptive capacity in weather-related disasters
• Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) for underserved populations, including people with disabilities (e.g., transportation, healthcare, housing, nutrition)
•  Mixed methods, GIS, and community-based participatory research

Teaching Interests

• Social work research methods (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods)
• Evidence-based practice in social work
• Mentoring and supporting non-traditional students (e.g., international students, firstgeneration students, working students)