معرفی
Dr. Marc A. Adams serves as the Assistant Dean of Education and Interim Program Director of the MPH in the School of Technology for Public Health at Arizona State University, while also holding a Professor position in the College of Health Solutions. He maintains additional affiliations with the Institute for Social Science Research as both a faculty member and Affiliated Faculty, and serves as a Senior Global Futures Scientist within the Global Futures Scientists and Scholars program. His academic leadership spans multiple institutional units focused on public health innovation and research.
Dr. Adams' educational background includes a PhD in Public Health from the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University (2009), an MPH in Public Health from San Diego State University (2003), a BA in Psychology from San Diego State University (2001), and postdoctoral training in Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Prevention at the University of California, San Diego (2011).
As a behavioral scientist and epidemiologist, Dr. Adams' research spans the intersection of digital health interventions, physical activity promotion, and behavioral nutrition within diverse neighborhood contexts. His work integrates advanced AI and deep learning techniques to map pedestrian environment features across thousands of US neighborhoods, revealing critical inequities in built environments. He develops and tests interventions that consider how urban planning features interact with behavior change strategies to increase physical activity and healthy eating, particularly among underserved populations. His methodological expertise includes epidemiologic methodology, clinical trial design, and the development of ecological models for understanding behavior-environment interactions. Dr. Adams is an active member of the International Physical Activity and Environment Network (IPEN), contributing to international comparative research on how city design influences physical activity levels across 14 global cities.
Dr. Adams' recent publications reveal a strong focus on neighborhood walkability, digital health interventions, and the use of AI to analyze built environments for public health purposes. His research consistently examines how environmental features moderate the effectiveness of physical activity interventions, with particular attention to socioeconomic disparities. The methodological approaches in his work span from traditional epidemiological studies to cutting-edge computer vision applications for analyzing street-level imagery at scale.
Dr. Adams has secured substantial research funding from multiple sources including NIH, American Heart Association, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His current projects include "Developing AI-measures of Pedestrian Environment Features for Physical Activity and Cancer Prevention in Rural Communities" (NIH/NCI, $413,673), "PED-PHAM: An Automated and Scalable Spatial Tool" (NIH/NHLBI SBIR, $275,000), and "WalkIT Arizona: Neighborhood walkability and moderation of adaptive interventions for physical activity" (NIH/NCI, $2,620,000). He serves as Principal Investigator on multiple projects while also collaborating as Co-Investigator on large-scale international studies through IPEN. His grant portfolio demonstrates expertise in both intervention development and environmental measurement, with a consistent focus on translating research findings into practical applications for public health practice.
Dr. Adams leads research teams focused on developing and validating AI tools for assessing pedestrian environments and testing how these environmental features interact with digital health interventions. His work with the International Physical Activity and Environment Network connects him to a global consortium of researchers examining built environment influences on physical activity across diverse cultural contexts. His laboratory work bridges computer science, public health, and urban planning disciplines to create innovative approaches for measuring and improving neighborhood environments that support healthy behaviors.
