Laura (Layla) H. ​Kwong, PhD

Biography

Laura (Layla) Kwong is an assistant professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She focuses on environmental justice as it applies to environmental health in low-income countries given the large disparities in health outcomes between high- and low-income countries. An engineer by training, Dr. Kwong works with communities using human-centered design principles to develop engineering interventions to address public health issues in low-income countries, particularly issues related to infectious diseases and air pollution. She works with local research partners to conduct randomized-controlled trials to evaluate these interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods. Dr. Kwong has conducted community-based participatory research in Bangladesh, Uganda, Indonesia, China, Mongolia, and Mali.

Dr. Kwong received a PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. Prior to her time at Stanford, Dr. Kwong worked on water security and national water quality standards as an ORISE Fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Research Interests

• Designing and testing interventions to improved child and maternal health in low-resources settings
• Household interventions to reduce air pollution and/or mitigate climate change
• Environmental health in humanitarian settings
• Children’s exposure to parasites and enteric pathogens and interventions to reduce exposure to feces in to soil and food. 
• Management of adult and child feces through container-based sanitation and child-friendly toilets
• Animal feces management

Education

• PhD – Civil & Environmental Engineering
  Stanford University 
• MS – Civil & Environmental Engineering
  Stanford University 
• BS – Chemistry; Biology
  University of Minnesota
• BA – Physiology
  University of Minnesota

Publications

• Google Scholar

Courses Taught

• • PBHLTH 292
  • Capstone seminars for EHS Students