Saif Khairat, a professor and Beerstecher-Blackwell Distinguished Term Scholar at the UNC School of Nursing, immediately knew data housed at UNC-Chapel Hill could play an important role in helping relief workers know more about who needed help and where.

Saif Khairat

His team at the Center for Virtual Care Value and Equity had a treasure trove of information on every ZIP code in the state as they analyze who has access to health care and who doesn’t. Last year, the National Institutes of Health’s Center for Advancing Translational Sciences awarded the University a $3.73 million grant to establish ViVE. The center collects socioeconomic data to help others figure out how to provide care and broaden access to digital health services.

“We have been working for a number of years on a way to understand the level of access to health care that communities have,” Khairat said. “We look at variables such as how many people in a community have access to a vehicle, which is a proxy of their ability to reach their doctor. How far are they from the closest highway? Who has an internet service provider?”

Within days of the event, Khairat and his team had aggregated publicly available information from the North Carolina Department of Transportation with its own data to create a map that could help identify areas of need. The darker blue areas of the map show the most vulnerable ZIP codes, where health care access is most difficult. They overlayed the NCDOT data to mark areas where bridges and roads have been destroyed or blocked, helping to identify where individuals may be difficult to reach.

Inaccessible road in rural Yancey County following Hurricane Helene. (Photo by Vickie Zitney)

“It allows us to do two things: understand the characteristics of these communities from a socioeconomic and health access standpoint and tailor our interventions to the needs of these communities,” Khairat said.

The center shared the tool widely with policymakers, health care leaders and providers to help them better understand how to provide care, as many of the communities already have access barriers. His hope is that the information can be used to identify areas where individuals have internet and can have a virtual care visit, or the ability to have a telephone visit.

An informatics expert, Khairat has spent years researching and collecting information on telemedicine and telehealth in health services and health data usability and visualization. In times of crisis, access to real-time accurate data can lead to timelier, tailored interventions, Khairat said.

“We have the technology to be able to aggregate thousands and millions of data points, and we can do it in a way that is intuitive and easy to digest. But what we’re lacking access to real-time accurate data,” he said.

ViVE’s recent partnership with the transportation department shows the importance of that access for emergencies. “We hope we don’t have anything similar to Helene in the future, but if we do, we’re going to be prepared,” Khairat said.

Read more about ViVE’s response to Helene.

The work began as research for Barber’s thesis project in the College of Arts and Sciences’ physics and astronomy department, but it has since led to a major finding. Earlier this year, Barber identified the youngest transiting planet ever discovered.  

The planet, named TIDYE-1b, is roughly the size of Jupiter and is an estimated 3 million years old. To put that age into perspective: If Earth were a 50-year-old person, TIDYE-1b would be a 2-week-old infant.  

Barber found the planet under the direction of UNC-Chapel Hill associate professor Andrew Mann, who leads a team of nine students in his Young Worlds Lab in Phillips Hall. On Nov. 20, the international science journal Nature published the 38-author paper titled “A Giant Planet Transiting a 3Myr Protostar With a Misaligned Disk,” with Barber and Mann as lead authors.  

Barber is still wrapping her mind around the magnitude of her discovery. 

“I’ve been looking for new planets for a while now, and it felt like we weren’t finding anything,” Barber said. “This was one of the first planets that popped out of our pipeline. It still feels really weird. ‘Weird’ is the best word I have for it.”  

Barber has been part of the Young Worlds Lab since 2020, when she was still an undergraduate.  

Mann founded the lab with the goal of better understanding the formation of young planets and how they evolve over time. To find young planets, Mann, Barber and the team observe the light emitted by stars. If the light dims, it could be the sign of a transiting planet.  

“When we’re looking for transits, we’re looking at the star’s brightness over a period of time,” Barber said. “When the planet comes in front of the star, we see a little dip in that brightness, because it’s blocking some of the star. So we’re looking for those repeated dips in the light curve.” 

Astronomers have found dozens of transiting planets in the 10- to 40-million-year-old range, but younger planets had been elusive before Barber’s discovery. A key reason why young planets are difficult to find is due to the thick, view-blocking protoplanetary disks that form around stars in the first 5 to 10 million years of life.  

However, the star that TIDYE-1b orbits has a misaligned disk, leaving the planet visible. The origin of that misalignment is still a mystery, and one that baffles astronomers.  

“Planets form in disks, and what you’d expect is the star, the planet and the disk to all be aligned,” Mann said. “The really weird thing about this system is the planet has an orientation that agrees with the star, but the disk is way off. It’s something like 60-plus degrees off. 

“Every astronomer looks at that and goes, ‘Really? That’s weird.’ Because, you know, every astronomer is thinking about angular momentum, just from intro physics, and they know that shouldn’t happen.” 

Clearly, there’s more to learn about TIDYE-1b and its origins. Barber is taking the lead on further observations, with a trip planned for the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Mann and Barber are also proposing for time with the James Webb Space Telescope — the largest in space.  

Studying young planets like TIDYE-1b is essential to understanding how planets form and evolve.  

“This proves that we can find these young systems,” Barber said. “So now we know we should be looking for more, and if we can make a population of these young systems, then we can draw even more conclusions.” 

But first they have to figure out what kind of signal forces the brain to select a more effective option. Where does this signal originate? And can it be used to improve outcomes for those with damage to the brain?

UNC School of Medicine faculty members Adam Hantman and Ian Shih, along with John W. Krakauer from Johns Hopkins University, are working to answer these questions thanks to a $1.3 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. The foundation has funded pioneering research in the sciences and medicine for 70 years.

The grant, Hantman noted, “offers us a runway to fully explore this idea, even though we’re starting from a pretty basic position.”

Hantman and his team have used a noninvasive technique on mice, known as optogenetics, that involves focusing a tiny beam of light on one part of the cerebral cortex that temporarily shuts it down. (Jeyhoun Allebaugh/University Development)

Basic science and seeking answers

To revisit the analogy of the blocked river, it’s clear that having engineers create a new, controlled channel could effectively bypass the rockfall and restore the river. But how do the engineers find out about the problem in the first place?

Krakauer, one of the principal investigators and a renowned expert in stroke recovery, notes that a huge amount of research has been done in this area, but without really finding the answers.

With new tools at hand and by asking the questions differently, Krakauer said, “this is a chance to ask a lot of seemingly simple, basic, fundamental questions and revisit them in a kind of 2.0 version.”

By developing tools and a study protocol to examine the very fundamentals — the whats, hows, wheres and whys of the switch in the brain that triggers a move to undamaged circuitry — the researchers are hopeful of a high level of applicability to human stroke recovery. Even though the type of damage may be different, they anticipate important similarities in the brain’s response.

As Krakauer explained, “the hope is that the basic science you’ve unearthed will give you an idea as to what to do to make people better.”

Song (left), a research scientist, and Albert (right), a postdoctoral fellow, work on a device that uses an MRI machine to image the brains of mice. (Jeyhoun Allebaugh/University Development)

Cautious optimism for pioneering applications

The project is still at an early stage, but Hantman, Shih and Krakauer believe it has the potential to yield important findings in stroke recovery by better discerning the underlying mechanisms in the brain.

One physician who agrees with this view is Dr. David Hwang, a professor in the UNC School of Medicine neurology department, who is not involved with the project. Much about the process of how brain function recovers after a stroke is not yet understood, he said, which leads to limited interventions to improve recovery.

“The knowledge from this project could lead to new treatment approaches down the road for improving stroke recovery,” he said.

Noting especially the paradox of higher levels of impairment leading to better recovery outcomes, he added, “one could imagine therapies for human stroke patients in the future where perhaps specific areas in their brains affected by stroke are actually further deactivated using noninvasive tools — in order to encourage their brains to utilize their other healthy areas to improve overall neurologic function.”

By overcoming practical challenges and creating an innovative approach, and with the critical support of the W. M. Keck Foundation’s grant, the researchers hope to make real progress in the field as they gain new insights into fundamental communication between different regions of the brain.

Read more about this brain research.

This weekly ritual of learning new moves, sewing costumes and performing eventually sparked a deeper curiosity in Sawin. She began to wonder: Could this exchange of culture and creativity be studied in school? Her curiosity led to a 27-year career as an academic and folklorist.

Now Sawin is chair and associate professor in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ American studies department. Sawin stresses that folklore is much more than quilts and old songs. It’s the cultural activities that people decide to maintain, perpetuate and pass on. It’s how we express creativity in everyday life.

“We’re in a world where we often think progress is the most important thing,” she says. “But remembering that there are a whole bunch of other, older alternatives is always interesting to me.”

Studying folklore

At UNC-Chapel Hill, folklore found its footing in the 1920s as part of a movement for scholars to define the South from within the South. Academics collected work songs from the mostly Black workmen who erected campus buildings, taught students to create theater productions about their North Carolina hometowns, sponsored a folk singing club and documented the budding student life at the time.

The University’s now 100-year-old academic discipline explores everything from graffiti to bluegrass, from religious festivals to immigration. More importantly, it explores how communities express their identities. Culture is no longer shared solely through oral storytelling or music festivals or potlucks — it’s shared through texts and social media and, yes, memes.

Online, we are interacting in ways that mirror a face-to-face conversation. Instead of speaking, we’re typing; instead of using facial expressions and body language, we’re using emojis; instead of making jokes or sharing stories, we’re sending memes. She’s found that while social media can be critical and create division, memes are a way to offer support and social connection, reflecting shared experiences.

“Memes are a little different because they’re not narrative, but they’re kind of like a poem,” Sawin says. “I mean, they’ve got all of these implications.”

And the memes she’s most interested in? Cats. She’s been studying how cat memes facilitate relationships in Facebook groups, even becoming tools for social advocacy. Sawin found that these memes tap into collective emotions, shared humor and social narratives to become a vehicle for discussing and promoting issues like workers’ rights and equality.

Combining culture and community

Sawin stayed at Carolina for nearly three decades because of the University’s unique folklore master’s program, the students she’s mentored and the state’s vibrant folk culture.

She wants to spend her retirement exploring research interests like transnational adoption, important to her as the mother of a daughter adopted from Guatemala. She also wants to volunteer with folk productions or in adoption organizations to combine her love for culture with her commitment to community.

The study of folklore will continue to adapt to changing technologies, and pioneering research like Sawin’s will illuminate how culture evolves and endures in the digital age.

“Folklorists are ethnographers, which means we interact with people, and we want to find out what’s important to them and why, and we want to celebrate their creativity,” she says.

Read more about Patricia Sawin’s research.

“I take almost every opportunity I can to see a new place and learn a little bit about different cultures and communities,” Charles says.  “It’s important for me because my background is such a cultural mix. I see value in what it means to be from a different place.”

The public health major got his first taste of nutritional research with the Food, Fitness and Opportunity Research Collaborative. Under the guidance of Carolina nutrition professor  Molly DeMarco, Charles contributed to a study detailing how the FFORC practices anti-racism in their research. He has also aided their assessment of a fruit and vegetable assistance program from the COVID-19 pandemic and worked with one of their community garden partners in Hillsborough.

Streamlining research across a variety of projects and teams can be difficult, but Charles has found a way to do it all. While much of his work has taken place in the state, some has sent him a little further away — to Africa and the Caribbean.

“But because of all these experiences I’ve had, I know where these data points might have come from,” Charles says. “You have a better idea about the person who purchased the food, who completed the survey, and even what the interaction between them and the cashier at the grocery store may have looked like.”

Charles’ current project takes place at the Global Food Research Program in the Carolina Population Center. The study will create a model to accurately predict children’s beverage consumption patterns using survey responses from students and schools in Kingston, Jamaica.

“We’re trying to understand how different characteristics and demographics might determine their nutritional status and what they really do consume,” Charles explains.

From 1975 to 2016, Jamaica’s obesity rate doubled, increasing from 1% to 13% in the children. Obesity is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart failure and coronary artery disease, to name a few, so a hard look at childhood rates is critical for the long-term health of communities.

This research team wants to know which beverages schools provide, what’s marketed to children, what they’re encouraged to drink at home, and what they actually drink. Then Charles examines data from the surveys to find common factors that significantly influence these kids’ consumption.

“This kind of work was an unintentional jump,” Charles says. “I don’t know if I intended to get super into data and food categorization, but I think I’ve learned a lot about quantitative research.”

While the last three years of his research career have provided him with a data-crunching skillset, Charles savors the fieldwork side of nutritional research and, eventually, hopes to be the type of doctor who prescribes fruits and vegetables to his patients.

“I want to consider all the inequities that might exist in food access, distribution and knowledge,” he says.

Read about more beverage research.

This past summer, researchers from the Carolina Drone Lab — a collaborative research unit within the UNC Institute for the Environment — visited four marsh sites along the Currituck Sound as part of a study on the applications of drone technologies for coastal resilience and habitat monitoring.

They are partnering with Elizabeth City State University and Audubon of North Carolina to aid in understanding the status of the marshes and the future management of the sound. The North Carolina Collaboratory and the Slick Family Foundation funded the project.

“Our partnerships are very important,” says Troy Walton, senior research associate in the UNC Institute for the Environment. “ECSU has a great aviation program and a wide variety of drones, which allows us to have another data set for comparison. Audubon owns the property that we’re collecting on, and they’re leading the restoration efforts.”

The research team records data from the marsh. (Megan Mendenhall/UNC Research)

High-tech conservation

Marshes are important for many reasons. They help to reduce the impact of flooding in coastal communities by absorbing and storing excess water. They filter water and prevent erosion. And they provide a habitat for a variety of wildlife, especially waterfowl, which draw tourists to the Currituck Sound each year, supporting the local economy.

But the sound is changing drastically. Nearly 72 acres of marshes in Currituck County are lost every year due to the combined effects of erosion and sea-level rise.

“If nothing happens, that marsh is going to end up drowning in the very near future,” Walton says.

To help protect and revive marsh habitat, Audubon of North Carolina began a series of sediment restoration pilot projects at the Donal C. O’Brien Jr. Sanctuary and Audubon Center at Pine Island. They dredge sediment from the sound and apply it to the marsh surface to elevate the land.

Satellite imagery can show the overall trajectories of marsh erosion and movement, but often with poor resolution and incorrect scales.

This is where the Carolina Drone Lab comes in. By stitching together over 1,000 super-high resolution drone photos, Walton and his team can create an image of the marsh with centimeter accuracy.

They also use the data to create a digital surface model that shows the elevation across the marsh and to understand if the elevation of the marsh is keeping up with local sea-level rise. Then, they compare that data with elevation points collected on the ground using a handheld GPS unit to verify its accuracy.

“This research benefits the citizens of North Carolina because the marsh problem is not just localized to Currituck Sound — it is across North Carolina and the world,” Walton says. “If we can better understand what’s happening here, then we’re able to take these strategies and expand them to the state and then hopefully further beyond that as well.”

“The sediments in the Currituck are really squishy [and] slimy,” says Peggy Mullin, a UNC-Chapel Hill master’s student. “Getting stuck in the marshes is just part of the job.”

Impact of underwater plants

While the larger project in the sound is focused on sediment, Peggy Mullin — a master’s student in the environment, ecology and energy program in the College of Arts and Sciences — wants to know how underwater plant life affects the marsh.

A vital component of aquatic ecosystems, this plant life provides habitats for fish, invertebrates and other marine organisms, while also improving water quality by absorbing excess nutrients. Additionally, its roots can stabilize sediments, reducing erosion.

For her investigation, she pilots a drone equipped with a specialized camera to detect the underwater plants. Then she goes out into the marsh to observe the vegetation there. She wants to determine if remote sensing tools are useful to detect and monitor the underwater plants.

“Once we figure out whether or not that can be done, that will have a lot of impacts on coastal monitoring and for the future of North Carolina’s coasts,” she says.

Read more about the marsh research.

Everyone wanted to get their hands on that extra space, especially applied mathematicians Roberto Camassa and Rich McLaughlin, who were running their fluid experiments in an old kitchen in Phillips Hall.

“When we first saw that space in Chapman Hall, we knew it was ideal for the next-level fluids mechanics research we wanted to do,” Camassa says. “It could fit a long wave tank, and the vibration would be low because it’s underground.”

The chemistry chair at the time called them “young punks,” McLaughlin says, “showing up at every meeting, pounding the tables, yelling for space.” But they persisted and got the funding.

The Fluids Lab in Chapman Hall officially opened its doors in 2007. There, applied mathematicians and interdisciplinary scientists study physical phenomena: ocean circulation, particulate matter, lung function and more.

“Not to brag, but I think this is one of the most unique places in the world,” Camassa says.

The lab houses a 118-foot-long wave tank — longer than an NBA basketball court — a wind tunnel, a water channel, an elliptical flume to study sediment transport, a thermal bath, a water-processing facility and additional tanks for smaller experimental setups.

The Fluids Lab houses a 118-foot wave tank, increasing the ability to study a variety of water-related phenomena like erosion patterns, oil spill effects and energy potential. (Megan Mendenhall/UNC Research)

Making waves

Camassa has used the space to study what happens to underwater ocean waves and circulation when fluids of different densities mix — a phenomenon that can cause currents so intense they threaten watercraft and the lives of the people on them. He can study this by filling the wave tank with fluids of different densities and measuring the size of the waves produced.

“The wave tank has a 3-meter water column that’s allowed us to study the way mixing occurs in a stratified ocean, which is still a big open question,” says Camassa, Kenan Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ mathematics department.

This demo illustrates the lab’s research in stratification and is an example of how oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill became trapped at intermediate depths within the Gulf of Mexico. (Megan Mendenhall/UNC Research)

“It also opens new doors to understanding energy recovery from wave fields, how waves destroy seawalls, and how seagrasses are important in preserving coastlines,” adds McLaughlin, also a professor in the mathematics department.

They began a project on self-assembly in 2017, when a student filled a tank with fluids of different densities to recreate ocean stratification. Overnight some of the particles fused together into a large disc-like shape. The specific combination of gravity and stratification in the student’s experimental setup created a horizontal force between particles sitting at the same heights, causing them to glom onto one another.

“This was probably the most exciting thing I’ve encountered in my career,” McLaughlin says.

The finding has the potential to impact how we clean up oil spills, microplastics and other pollutants in the ocean. Their work was published in Nature Communications in 2019.

Environmental scientists have used the racetrack flume to study how streams filter pollutants and how pollutants affect bank erosion, runoff and water quality. Biologists have used the wind tunnel to learn how hurricane-force winds impact trees. A collaborative team of researchers from the College and the medical and pharmacy schools used the lab to understand how mucus moves in and out of the lungs. And now, they are collaborating with exercise and sport scientist Claudio Battaglini on a project to improve swimmer performance for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“The Fluids Lab is an applied math space, but we’ve always had an open-door policy,” McLaughlin says. “We want to have people come work in and benefit from the existence of the lab.”

Read more about Fluids Lab research.

These futuristic innovations sound like science fiction, but they are the real projects of Wubin Bai. As an assistant professor of applied physical sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, Bai works with soft and nanomaterials to create next-generation medical devices.

Soft materials are “anything we can deform with our hands,” he says. These include foams, gels, liquids, plastics and biological materials like organs and cells. Nanomaterials are teeny-tiny particles less than 100 nanometers in size. Cell components, DNA and proteins are nanomaterials.

Bai’s lab specializes in combining artificial and biological materials to create new medical devices. He has a background in physics and materials science and works with clinicians, biologists and other scientists to create these innovations.

“I want to understand the challenges that exist in health care and biology,” he says. “These enormous fields are a gold mine for us to explore.”

Bai’s skin patch can measure blood oxygen levels, heart rate, respiration and blood pressure. (Alyssa LaFaro/UNC Research)

Improving treatment and patient monitoring

Among Bai’s many projects is a wireless patch that delivers drugs to patients using a smartphone or computer. About the size of a Band-Aid, the patch contains microneedles that deliver medication into the patient on demand.

Bai and his collaborator, pharmacologist Juan Song, believe the patch could administer multiple medications at once, making it useful for diseases like Alzheimer’s and HIV, which require a combination of drugs to treat.

Another is a pulse oximeter that can provide more effective readings for patients of color. Because only a small range of skin tones were considered in the creation of these devices, some readings can be inaccurate.

“So we’re designing a spectrometer that incorporates a broad range of light sources to consider multiple skin tones,” Bai says.

Bai’s lab has also created wireless, wearable patch for deep tissue monitoring that allows doctors to track vitals in real-time and improves comfort in patients. Current deep tissue monitors often require implantation using ultrasound technology.

“We could put it near the neck to monitor coughing and swelling in the throat without any painful intubation measures,” he says.

Accessing hard-to-reach places

Bai and his collaborators in biology, biomedical engineering and chemistry are also developing technology for use inside the body: robots that mimic human skin.

This e-skin uses silver nanowires and conductive polymers to sense its surroundings and adapt as needed. It can mold to the organs it’s treating, administer treatments like electrical signals, and measure blood pressure, bladder volume and more.

E-skin could be a game-changer for risky procedures. That’s why Bai is also collaborating with Carolina geneticist Jason Stein, who creates 3D cell structures in petri dishes — called organoids — that use a patient’s real brain cells to test drugs on to determine best treatments for brain diseases.

Some of Bai’s tiny devices: a wearable patch to map skin mechanics (upper left), a series of multimodal transistors using two-dimensional materials (center) and an array of microelectrodes to record activities from brain organoids. (Alyssa LaFaro/UNC Research)

Training the next generation

In his three years at UNC-Chapel Hill, Bai has built a large cohort of young researchers. He is mentoring more than 30 of them, from high school students to postdoctoral researchers.

“They often bring up ideas and thoughts that are not influenced or molded by previous research in this field,” he says. “Those refreshing, sometimes out-of-box, thoughts could draw exciting innovations in our research.”

Both Bai and his students are motivated by the pace at which these projects move. Creating powerful medical tools with small, accessible devices drives the production process.

“Our research connects with broad communities and can be translated into the real world,” Bai says. “That motivates us to constantly provide new visions, ideas and concepts to further revolutionize medical technologies and improve health care.”

Read more about Wubin Bai’s innovations.

The plan, launched in May, aims to drive research growth and innovation and transform the research ecosystem to be nimbler and more accessible. Ultimately, it will accelerate the University’s impact on the state, the country and the world.

The Well asked Penny Gordon-Larsen, vice chancellor for research, about the Roadmap.

What are the goals of the Roadmap and what spurred its creation?

With the Research Roadmap, we will make even greater achievements in curing and preventing diseases, accelerating environmental resilience, generating new knowledge, and finding ways to improve society. The plan starts at our current state of excellence and accelerates growth by prioritizing strategic investments to: drive cutting-edge research, build on our unique strengths, advance strategic areas of growth, pursue more high-risk, high-reward opportunities and propel impact-oriented research so we can serve more citizens.

The Roadmap was developed through an inclusive process through which we gathered insights from stakeholders across the University, along with data from a campus-wide survey and group discussions. After analyzing all the data, we created this campus-level strategy to leverage our incredible research potential for greater impact.

How will it benefit those who conduct research?

We are investing in state-of-the-art facilities, equipment and data assets to support cutting-edge research in strategic priority areas. By improving our processes for translation, clinical research and community-engaged research, we will accelerate the time it takes for research discoveries to benefit society.

Carolina has the best researchers in the world, and we need to ensure they have the support they need to continue excelling in their fields. To this end, we are making research support and compliance more efficient so we can be nimbler and more entrepreneurial. And we are cultivating a research ecosystem that encourages creativity, risk-taking and interdisciplinary collaboration.

By making a greater positive impact on the world, we’re solidifying our reputation as a world-class leader in research and education for the public good.

What have we achieved in the early months of the Roadmap’s rollout?

We’ve already had a few wins to celebrate with the launch. We’re currently working on the design of a new Translational Research Building and plan to break ground on construction this fall. In partnership with the NC Collaboratory, we funded the largest set of Creativity Hubs projects. We launched a new Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation, which will bring together investigators from multiple disciplines to address the financial risks arising from a growing number of threats to our state and beyond, ranging from extreme weather to cybersecurity. We also launched the Research Data Management Core to maximize Carolina’s data assets. We launched a new Catalyst Faculty Research Cluster Program with the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost to recruit top faculty talent to campus to accelerate strategic priority research areas. Additionally, we’ve updated our NC Research Impact Map, which showcases how the University’s research touches every part of North Carolina.

Our working groups have developed goals and deliverables for the Roadmap’s priorities and imperatives. Once we finalize these goals, they will be available on our Roadmap website.

Visit the Research Roadmap website for more information on each of the plan’s initiatives, progress updates and working group members.

Professor Greg Characklis, director of the Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems, and his team used cutting-edge mathematical techniques to develop computational models that combine census records with environmental and financial data to evaluate risks. The first-of-its-kind modeling involves a series of advanced approaches, including machine learning, to estimate the probability of mortgage default and property abandonment down to the neighborhood scale. Characklis is the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the school’s environmental sciences and engineering department.

What the models show can aid policymakers and stakeholders in creating effective and equitable strategies for helping communities recover. After floods and other natural disasters, people sometimes abandon their damaged houses. They may default on mortgages because repair costs are either unaffordable or higher than the property’s value.

Greg Characklis

Improved information on who is at risk gives policymakers a better chance at reducing mortgage default rates through aid programs. It can also reduce property abandonment rates, which can occur when neither owners nor lenders take responsibility for damaged properties. In such cases, local governments often bear the burden of maintaining or demolishing them.

The models produce aggregated data reports based on census tracts, which are small, relatively permanent statistical parts of a county that average about 4,000 inhabitants. The reports pin-point high-risk neighborhoods that governments and entities can help by developing policies, providing resources, subsidizing flood insurance or creating buyout programs. The models use data on home proximity to streams and other bodies of water, home elevations, paved land, flood policies and claims. The models also evaluate census records, mortgage data and home values to estimate the amount of damage and estimate the risk of default or abandonment.

By estimating mortgage balance and home values, researchers determine which homeowners can borrow against their home’s equity to make post-flood repairs. “Those with lower mortgage balances and more equity in their homes are better positioned to borrow against the value of their home. Homeowners who have flood insurance are less vulnerable to default because they have the ability to draw on their policy to pay off some or all losses,” Characklis said.

For a 2023 study published in Earth’s Future, a model estimated $562 million in previously unquantified financial risks in eastern North Carolina from property value changes and uninsured flood damages associated with Hurricane Florence. Characklis and Antonia Sebastian, assistant professor of Earth, marine and environmental sciences, co-authored the paper with lead author Hope Thomson, a graduate student.

“All this financial risk hadn’t been quantified before,” Characklis said. “Our work has the potential to provide information that can be used to improve situations for people.”

Characklis has briefed some state government officials on the models’ capabilities, and he plans to inform N.C. General Assembly members. The North Carolina Collaboratory, established by the General Assembly, funds the lab’s work.

“Our government does not want people in FEMA trailers or in motels or hotels for extended periods,” he said. “By identifying financially at-risk groups, the state can better target aid.”