About

Jennifer Vanos is an associate professor in the School of Sustainability and the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the connections between extreme heat and human health in urban environments, emphasizing heat adaptation and the specific heat risks faced by vulnerable populations such as children, athletes, and outdoor workers. As a human biometeorologist, Dr. Vanos integrates atmospheric science, thermal physiology, public health, and sustainability to promote human health across multiple scales, ranging from detailed, human-centered studies to broad applications involving climate models. She directs the Human Biometeorology Lab at ASU, which aims to enhance society's capacity to manage, mitigate, and adapt to extreme heat and air pollution amid climate change. Additionally, she leads the HeatReady Schools program, serves as principal investigator for the NSF-funded Global Center on Heat Adaptation design grant, and is an active member of the Urban Climate Research Center.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Environmental health
• Environmental science
• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Economics
• Sociology
• Environmental resource management
• Ecology
• Political Science
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Environmental planning
• Socioeconomics
• Physics
• Economic growth
• Natural resource economics
• Biology
• Nursing
• Meteorology
• Business
• Geography

Selected publications

• Beyond surface cooling: Comprehensive field assessment of reflective pavement thermal performance in Phoenix, Arizona

  Building and Environment · 2026-02-14

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Turbulence of airflow matters in human thermophysiological response in the heat: The journal <i>Temperature</i> toolbox

  Figshare · 2026-02-06

  articleOpen access

  Turbulent airflow is a fundamental characteristic of real-world outdoor and mechanically ventilated environments, yet most thermoregulation models rely on heat transfer coefficients derived from steady indoor airflows with low turbulence intensity. Using an updated Stolwijk thermoregulation model and a turbulence-informed heat transfer correlation, we evaluated the impact of turbulence intensity and integral length scale on human thermophysiological responses. Simulations were conducted across three environmental conditions (hot-dry, hot-humid, temperate), two clothing levels (0 and 0.6 clo), two activity levels (1.2 and 4.0 MET), and air speeds ranging from 0.4 to 5 m/s. Results show that turbulence significantly enhances convective and evaporative heat loss in temperate and hot-dry environments when unclothed. Compared to baseline simulations that neglect turbulence characteristics at equivalent air speed, core temperature differed by up to 0.3°C, and skin temperature by up to 1.8°C, highlighting the potential physiological relevance of turbulence. In contrast, the influence of turbulence is minimal in hot-humid environments and when clothed. These findings demonstrate that turbulence should not be viewed as inherently beneficial or detrimental, but rather as a mechanistic modifier of heat and mass transfer whose physiological impact depends on context, including ambient temperature, metabolic rate, clothing, and the skin-air temperature difference. This work advances the field by introducing a turbulence-resolved approach to support the improved assessment of heat exposure across vulnerable populations, including outdoor workers and athletes, and to guide the design of more effective cooling strategies and ventilation systems, such as fans, based on different climate and personal contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• Developing a categorical climate risk assessment scale for archival institutions: a GIS-based pilot study from the PROTECCT-GLAM project

  Archives and Records · 2026-04-16

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Heat and PM10 Exposure Mitigation Routing Tradeoffs: A Multiobjective Budget Constrained Approach

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Model Specification and Data Characteristics Influence Heat-Health Outcome Modeling

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Turbulence of airflow matters in human thermophysiological response in the heat: The journal <i>Temperature</i> toolbox

  Temperature · 2026-01-02

  article

  Turbulent airflow is a fundamental characteristic of real-world outdoor and mechanically ventilated environments, yet most thermoregulation models rely on heat transfer coefficients derived from steady indoor airflows with low turbulence intensity. Using an updated Stolwijk thermoregulation model and a turbulence-informed heat transfer correlation, we evaluated the impact of turbulence intensity and integral length scale on human thermophysiological responses. Simulations were conducted across three environmental conditions (hot-dry, hot-humid, temperate), two clothing levels (0 and 0.6 clo), two activity levels (1.2 and 4.0 MET), and air speeds ranging from 0.4 to 5 m/s. Results show that turbulence significantly enhances convective and evaporative heat loss in temperate and hot-dry environments when unclothed. Compared to baseline simulations that neglect turbulence characteristics at equivalent air speed, core temperature differed by up to 0.3°C, and skin temperature by up to 1.8°C, highlighting the potential physiological relevance of turbulence. In contrast, the influence of turbulence is minimal in hot-humid environments and when clothed. These findings demonstrate that turbulence should not be viewed as inherently beneficial or detrimental, but rather as a mechanistic modifier of heat and mass transfer whose physiological impact depends on context, including ambient temperature, metabolic rate, clothing, and the skin-air temperature difference. This work advances the field by introducing a turbulence-resolved approach to support the improved assessment of heat exposure across vulnerable populations, including outdoor workers and athletes, and to guide the design of more effective cooling strategies and ventilation systems, such as fans, based on different climate and personal contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• Hot Topics: Building Capacity for Extreme Heat Adaptation through Transdisciplinary Training

  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2026-01-23

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Turbulence of airflow matters in human thermophysiological response in the heat: The journal <i>Temperature</i> toolbox

  Figshare · 2026-02-06

  articleOpen access

  Turbulent airflow is a fundamental characteristic of real-world outdoor and mechanically ventilated environments, yet most thermoregulation models rely on heat transfer coefficients derived from steady indoor airflows with low turbulence intensity. Using an updated Stolwijk thermoregulation model and a turbulence-informed heat transfer correlation, we evaluated the impact of turbulence intensity and integral length scale on human thermophysiological responses. Simulations were conducted across three environmental conditions (hot-dry, hot-humid, temperate), two clothing levels (0 and 0.6 clo), two activity levels (1.2 and 4.0 MET), and air speeds ranging from 0.4 to 5 m/s. Results show that turbulence significantly enhances convective and evaporative heat loss in temperate and hot-dry environments when unclothed. Compared to baseline simulations that neglect turbulence characteristics at equivalent air speed, core temperature differed by up to 0.3°C, and skin temperature by up to 1.8°C, highlighting the potential physiological relevance of turbulence. In contrast, the influence of turbulence is minimal in hot-humid environments and when clothed. These findings demonstrate that turbulence should not be viewed as inherently beneficial or detrimental, but rather as a mechanistic modifier of heat and mass transfer whose physiological impact depends on context, including ambient temperature, metabolic rate, clothing, and the skin-air temperature difference. This work advances the field by introducing a turbulence-resolved approach to support the improved assessment of heat exposure across vulnerable populations, including outdoor workers and athletes, and to guide the design of more effective cooling strategies and ventilation systems, such as fans, based on different climate and personal contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• The heat stress compensability classification (HSCC) applied within the United States: model update and code availability

  International Journal of Biometeorology · 2026-03-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Mapping GLAMs: creating a national dataset of GLAMs to develop a categorical climate-change risk assessment scale

  Information Research an international electronic journal · 2025-03-11 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Introduction. The PROTECCT-GLAM project aims to assess and address climate risks for U.S. galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs). The project team began with creating a national dataset of GLAMs. Method. The project team used existing datasets that required different auditing and manipulation techniques to align its data. Following the data normalization, the master file included 77,960 entries. Analysis and Results. The project team used ArcGIS Pro to analyze a dataset of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) for risk from sea level rise, finding 16,877 GLAMs within 30 kilometres of the U.S. coast, with California, New York, Maryland, Florida, and New Jersey having the highest numbers. They also assessed GLAMs per capita by state using 2020 census data, reporting results per 10,000 people. Conclusion. The dataset creation was successful and is being utilized to create a five-point scale based on the average of five climate variables for each GLAM.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Coupling Climate and Human Health Models to Build Pathways to Extreme Heat Resilience

  NSF · $647k · 2021–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Ariane Middel

  44 shared

• David M. Hondula

  Arizona State University

  38 shared

• Ollie Jay

  University of Sydney

  20 shared

• Leslie K. Norford

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  19 shared

• Riccardo Paolini

  17 shared

• Alberto Martilli

  17 shared

• Mahsan Sadeghi

  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

  17 shared

• Robert D. Brown

  16 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Environmental Sciences

  University of Guelph

  2012

• B.S., Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

  University of Guelph

  2008

Awards & honors

• Outgoing Chair of the American Meteorological Society’s Boar…
• co-author on new WHO Heat & Health guidance