معرفی
Thomas Cova is a Professor at the University of Utah's School of Environment, Society & Sustainability, with a 27-year academic career spanning from 1999 to present. His expertise bridges human geography, disaster management, and geospatial technologies, focusing on wildfire evacuation systems, earthquake response, and environmental hazard mitigation.
His educational background includes a
- BS in Computer and Information Science from University of Oregon (1986)
- PhD in Geography from University of California Santa Barbara (1999)
Research highlights include pioneering work in wildfire evacuation modeling using GPS data, equifinality reduction in agent-based simulations, and social vulnerability analysis in environmental hazards. He has developed novel methodologies for warning trigger systems and spatial resilience metrics, with applications in earthquake early warning, flood modeling, and post-disaster recovery assessment.
Recent publications demonstrate cross-disciplinary impact, including studies on racial disparities in air quality monitoring (2024), disaster resilience spatial analysis (2024), and machine learning applications for evacuation decision modeling (2023). His work combines
- geospatial information systems
- human behavior simulation
- emergency management frameworks
- public policy analysis
Scientific awards include the
- 2016 Excellence in Mentoring Award
- 2015 National Science Foundation Mentoring Program Advisor
Teaching activities span advanced geographic programming, disaster geography, and PhD thesis supervision since 2023. Current grants focus on
- household wildfire resilience (2023-2026)
- spatial data analysis (2021-2025)
- multiple NSF-funded hazards research initiatives
