Louisa M Holmes

Louisa M Holmes serves as Associate Professor of Geography and Demography at The Pennsylvania State University's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, with additional appointments as Associate Faculty in the Consortium on Substance Use and Addiction (CSUA), Social Science Research Institute, Population Research Institute, and a courtesy appointment in Demography.

Her research focuses on how place-based inequities produce and reinforce health disparities through social engagement, built and natural environments, and multi-level policy infrastructures. Key research areas include neighborhood inequities and stress mitigation through urban planning, and substance use landscapes using demographic and geospatial methods.

Dr. Holmes employs diverse methodologies including probabilistic household surveys of hard-to-reach populations, ecological momentary assessment studies, observational research, and community-based participatory projects. Her current research portfolio includes the Bay Area Young Adult Health Panel Study, geographic disparities in opioid use disorder, longitudinal evaluation of opioid settlement funding impacts in Pennsylvania, and Monongahela Valley community environmental assessments.

Her work has received funding from multiple prestigious sources including the National Cancer Institute, National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FDA Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science, California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, and the California Endowment.

Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Holmes was Assistant Professor of Geography at SUNY Binghamton (2016-2020), completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF in the Center for Tobacco Control Research & Education (2013-2016), and earned her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Southern California (2013). She currently maintains the GeoHealth Lab and Substance Use and Health Lab (SCH Lab) and is actively recruiting graduate students interested in substance use epidemiology, health inequity, and local climate impacts on health.