Our Team > Aaliya

Aaliya is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Brian McAdoo in PlanetLab in the Division of Earth and Climate Sciences at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Her doctoral research focuses on understanding the planetary-scale changes impacting the health and well-being of rural mountain communities in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) Region, focusing specifically on Nepal and Pakistan.

Her initial project focuses on understanding communities’ perceptions on global environmental changes and underlying causes of health outcomes in Siranchowk Rural Municipality impacted by 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. She is currently working on two projects to develop a better understanding of the connections between a climate-induced mountain hazard and mental health outcomes. For these projects, she is focusing on Hussanabad village located in Hunza Valley that was impacted by 4 glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) since 2019.

Despite these environmental risks and other socioeconomic challenges, rural mountain communities continue to live in these hazard-prone areas for social, cultural, and economic reasons. To support them in adapting to the evolving environmental changes and reduce mental health-related challenges, she has embarked on this interdisciplinary research that is deeply rooted in my personal story of growing up in a rural mountainous village in Hunza Valley.

With the help of our research collaborators at the University of Liverpool, UK, she aspires to implement a culturally tailored intervention in the Himalayan region of Pakistan to equip vulnerable communities, targeting women, with the tools necessary to manage stress, not only during disasters but also in their daily lives. She envisions this foundational intervention as a blueprint for advancing climate change and mental health research in regions prone to multiple hazards in Gilgit-Baltistan and beyond the Himalayas.

She aims to share the aggregated findings with key stakeholders, policymakers, academic institutions, and health organizations in Pakistan to allocate increased resources and funding towards advancing climate change and mental health research and enhancing the mental healthcare service provision.