Shelley Hoover is interested in social inequalities and environmental hazards. Her research is focused on modeling the social dimensions of vulnerability and incorporating those models into effective hazard mitigation policy. A geographer by training, she is specifically interested in studying the relationships between place and the processes that generate social vulnerability.

Prior to joining the STEP program, Shelley worked with the University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health and the University of Chicago’s Center for Spatial Data Science.  At the University of Illinois Chicago, she was the Assistant Director of Research Services and an Adjunct Lecturer teaching Geospatial Analysis and Social Vulnerability courses. At the University of Chicago, she held a research associate appointment working on a place-based social determinants of health model.