Biography:

Dr. Brian Bossak is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University. Dr. Bossak received both his B.S. and M.A. in Physical Geography from The University of Georgia and received his Ph.D. in Geography from Florida State University. Dr. Bossak also has Public Health training, with a concentration in Environmental Health, from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. He joined the faculty of Georgia Southern University in August, 2008.

Dr. Bossak has previously worked in both academic and governmental capacities, including several years with the U.S. Geological Survey, Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. In addition, Dr. Bossak previously taught Meteorology, Global Climate Change, and Natural Hazards courses for two academic years in the Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Geosciences at Valdosta State University.

Dr. Bossak's major teaching responsibilities are the core Master’s-level Environmental Health course; Environment, Ethics, and Equity; and workshops on the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). His teaching interests also extend to Medical Geography, Global Climate Change and Health, Spatial Statistics, Natural Hazards, and Remote Sensing.

Dr. Bossak’s current research specialties include the connection between climate change and vector-borne infectious diseases, forecasting and assessing the environmental and human health risks from landfalling Atlantic and Gulf coast hurricanes, utilizing GIS and remote sensing techniques to model environmental health parameters such as water-borne pathogen presence/concentration, and coastal zone hazard research, including African dust and respiratory health investigations.

Dr. Bossak is an active member of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the Geological Society of America (GSA), and The American Geophysical Union (AGU). He has served as a volunteer at the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s State Emergency Operations Center, completed FEMA’s Professional Development Series certificate in emergency management, and participated in full-scale Avian Influenza (H5N1) emergency drills at the CDC’s Emergency Operations Center (DEOC). He hopes to establish an academic CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) to respond to natural hazards (hurricanes, etc.) and community health emergencies in Statesboro and Bulloch County, and expects to explore this possibility in the coming year.