Dr. So-Min Cheong is a Professor in the Public Service & Administration Department at the Bush School. Dr. Cheong's current research focuses on the social and health consequences of environmental disasters and climate change adaptation including oil spills, floods, extreme heat, and wildfires. Her recent work employs wearable sensing and mobile technologies to address individual and precision health. She also focuses on energy including residential electricity demand, AI data centers and power management, and community sustainability.
She has worked on a number of commissioned reports for the Korean government, UNESCO, and WMO. She is a Lead Author of multiple UN-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports including the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7), Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), and Special Reports on ocean and cryosphere (SROCC) and extremes and disasters (SREX), and a Contributing Author of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). She also contributed to the U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) on built environment and cities. She serves as a specialty chief editor of Climate Action for the journal, Frontiers in Climate, and member of the WHO (World Health Organization)'s Technical Advisory Group on Climate Change, the Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region. Her awards include the National Academies Gulf Research Program grant and NSF CAREER award. She is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Dr. Cheong received her PhD in Geography, and MA degrees in Marine Affairs and International Studies at the University of Washington. She earned her BA in English from Yonsei University in Korea, and was an exchange student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Prior to joining the Bush School in 2022, she was an associate professor at the University of Kansas. She was also a visiting professor at Yale, Stanford, NYU, and BRGM (French Geological Survey).
