Marta Jankowska, Ph.D.

626-218-4673
Marta Jankowska, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Population Sciences
Research Teams
Population Sciences

I became a researcher so that I could ask complicated questions about health, and try to understand how biological processes unfold in the environments surrounding us.

Marta M. Jankowska, Ph.D., wants to know how the world around us — “Our neighborhood, the places we go, the people we spend time with, the policies we live under, even the air we breathe,” affect our collective health. She’s been grappling with such questions since childhood. “I grew up in a family of researchers,” she said, “and was always encouraged to ask why and to dig deeper.”
 
Bilingual in English and Polish, Dr. Jankowska received her Ph.D. at San Diego State University and University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also did postdoctoral work in family medicine and public health. Along the way she has studied health and environment in such diverse places as Ghana, Ethiopia and Austria, and earned a host of honors and awards.
 
Dr. Jankowska is delighted to join the City of Hope team of researchers, lauding them for “working on innovative and complex health issues with collaborations across disciplines.”

Location

Education & Experience

Degrees

  • 2013, Ph.D., Geography, San Diego State University and University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

  • 2010, M.S., Geographic Information Science, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

  • 2006, B.A., Political Theory; Minor in Microbiology, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA

Professional Experience

  • 2021-present, Associate Professor, City of Hope, Duarte, CA

  • 2016-2021, Assistant Research Scientist, Qualcomm Institute, University of California, San Diego, CA

  • 2007-2013, Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Geography, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

Awards & Memberships

Awards

  • 2019, New Paradigms for Dietary Assessments Workshop Scholarship Recipient, collaboration between University of Sydney and University of California, San Diego, Design Lab

  • 2016, University of California, San Diego, Public Health Research Day, Second Place Best Poster Award in Faculty and Postdoctoral Category, “Can We Measure Fast Food and Restaurant Eating Behaviors using GPS and GIS? Challenges and Issues Explored in a Validation Study”

  • 2015, TREC Investigator Exchange Program Awardee, University of California, San Diego, to Harvard University

  • 2012, Student Research Symposium Library Award, Awarded by San Diego State University

  • 2011, Graduate Research Award for Social Science Surveys, Awarded by University of California, Santa Barbara, Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research

  • 2009, Alvena Storm Memorial Scholarship, Awarded by Dr. James Storm and the San Diego State University Geography Department

Publications

  • López-Carr, D., Davis, J., Jankowska, M., Grant, L., López-Carr, A. C., & Clark, M. (2012). Space versus Place in Complex Human-Natural Systems: Spatial and Multi-level Models of Tropical Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) in Guatemala. Ecological modelling, 229, 64–75.
  • Jankowska, M. M., Weeks, J. R., & Engstrom, R. (2012). Do the Most Vulnerable People Live in the Worst Slums? A Spatial Analysis of Accra, Ghana. Annals of GIS, 17(4), 221–235.
  • Weeks, J. R., Getis, A., Stow, D. A., Hill, A. G., Rain, D., Engstrom, R., Stoler, J., Lippitt, C., Jankowska, M., Lopez-Carr, A. C., Coulter, L., & Ofiesh, C. (2012). Connecting the Dots Between Health, Poverty, and Place in Accra, Ghana. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(5), 932–941.
  • Jankowska, M.M., Lopez-Carr, D., Funk, C., Husak, G., & Chafe, Z. (2012) Climate Change and Human Health: Spatial Modeling of Water Availability, Malnutrition, and Livelihoods in Mali, Africa. Applied geography. 33: 4-15.
  • Jankowska, M.M., Benza-Fiocco, M. & Weeks, J. (2012) Estimating Spatial Inequalities of Urban Child Mortality. Demographic Research, 28(2): 33-62.
  • Lopez-Carr, D., Pricope, N.G., Aukema, J.E., Jankowska, M.M., Funk, C., Husak, G., & Michaelsen, J. (2014) A spatial analysis of population dynamics and climate change in Africa: potential vulnerability hot spots emerge where precipitation declines and demographic pressures coincide. Population and environment. 35(3): 323-339.
  • Carlson, J.A., Jankowska, M.M., Meseck, K., Godbole, S., Natarajan,  L., Raab, F., Demchak, B., Patrick, K., & Kerr, J. (2014) Validity of PALMS GPS Scoring of Active and Passive Travel Compared to SenseCam. Medicine and science in sports and exercise  47(3): 662-667.
  • Jankowska, M.M., Stoler, J., Ofiesh, C., Rain, D., & Weeks, J.R. (2015) Agency, Access, and Anopheles: Neighborhood health perceptions and the implications for community health interventions in Accra, Ghana.  Global health action. 8.
  • Shi, Y., Jankowska, M.M., & Meseck, K. (2016) Availability of medical marijuana stores and neighborhood characteristics in Colorado. Journal of addiction. v2016.
  • Lopez-Carr, D., Mwenda, K.M., Pricope, N.G., Kyriakidis, P.C., Jankowska, M.M., Weeks, J.R., Funk, C., Husak, G., &  Michaelsen, J. (2016) Climate-Related Child Undernutrition in the Lake Victoria Basin: An Integrated Spatial Analysis of Health Surveys, NDVI, and Precipitation Data. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing. 99, pg 1-6.
  • Meseck, K., Jankowska, M.M., Schipperijn, J., Natarajan, L., Godbole, S., Carlson, J., Takemoto, M., Crist, K. & Kerr, J.(2016) Is missing geographic position system (GPS) data in accelerometry studies a problem, and is imputation the solution? Geospatial health. 11(2).
  • Baer, R.J., Lessard, L., Jankowska, M.M., Anderson, J., Block, J.G., Chambers, C.D., Fuchs, J., Kuppermann, M., McLemore, M.R., Newel, G. Oltman, S.P., Rogers, E.E., Ryckman, K.K., Steurer, M.A., Yang,  J.A., Franck, L.S., Rand, L., &  Jelliffe-Pawlowski, L.L. (2018) Comparison of risk and protective factors for preterm birth in rural, suburban, and urban Fresno County, California. Journal of epidemiological research. 4(2).
  • Padula, A.M., Huang, H., Baer, R.J., August, L.M., Jankowska, M.M., Jelliffe-Pawlowski, L.L., Sirota, M., & Woodruff, T.J. (2018) Environmental pollution and social factors as contributors to preterm birth in Fresno County. Environmental health. 17(1)
  • McDonald, D., Hyde, E., Debulius, J. W., Morton,  J.T., Gonzalez, A., Ackermann, G., Aksenov, A. A., Behsaz, B., Brennan, C., Chen, Y., Goldasich, L. D., Dorrestein, P. C., Dunn, R. R., Fahimipour, A. K., Gaffney, J., Gilbert, J. A., Gogul, G., Green, J. L., Hugenholtz, P., Humphrey, G., Huttenhower, C., Jackson, M. A., Janssen, D.V. Jeste, L. Jiang, S.T. Kelley, D. Knights, T. Kosciolek, J. Ladau, S., Leach, J., Marotz, C., Meleshko, D., Melnik, A. V., Metcalf, J. L., Mohimani, H., Montassier, E., Navas-Molina, J., Nguyen, T. T., Peddada, S., Pevzner, P., Pollard, K. S., Rahnavard, G., Robbins-Pianka, A., Sangwan, N., Shorenstein, J., Smarr, L., Song, S. J., Spector, T., Swafford, A. D., Thackray, V. G., Thompson, L. R., Tripathi, A., Vazquez-Baeza, Y., Vrbanec, A., Wischmeyer, P., Wolfe, E., Zhu, Q., The American Gut Consortium*, Knight, R. (2018) American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. mSystems. 3:e00031-18. *I am a part of the American Gut Consortium (listed in bold).
  • Gallo, L. C., Carlson, J. A., Sotres-Alvarez, D., Sallis, J. F., Jankowska, M. M., Roesch, S. C., Gonzalez, F., 2nd, Geremia, C. M., Talavera, G. A., Rodriguez, T. M., Castañeda, S. F., & Allison, M. A. (2019). The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos Community and Surrounding Areas Study: sample, design, and procedures. Annals of Epidemiology, 30, 57–65.
  • Jankowska, M.M., Sears, D.D., Natarajan, L. et al. Protocol for a cross sectional study of cancer risk, environmental exposures and lifestyle behaviors in a diverse community sample: the Community of Mine study. BMC Public Health. 19, 186 (2019).
  • Jankowska, M. M., Yang, J. A., Block, J., Baer, R. J., Jelliffe-Pawlowski, L. L., Flores, S., Pacheco-Warner, T., Costantino, A., Fuchs, J., Chambers, C. D., & Newel, G. (2019). An Online Geographic Data Visualization Tool to Relate Preterm Births to Environmental Factors. Preventing chronic disease, 16, E102.
  • Marquet, O., Floyd, M.F., James, P., Glanz, K., Jennings, V., Jankowska, M. M., Kerr, J., Hipp, J. A. (2020) Associations between worksite walkability, greenness, and physical activity around work. Environment and Behavior, 52(2): 139-163.
  • Steurer, M. A., J. Costello, R. J., Baer, L., Lessard, Oltman, S. P., Feuer, S. K., Pacheco-Werners, T., Rogers, E. E., Jankowska, M. M. , Block, J., McCarthy, M., Pantell, M. S., Chambers, C. D., Ryckman, K. K., Jelliffe-Pawlowski, L. L. (2020) Cohort study of respiratory hospital admissions, air quality and sociodemographic factors in preterm infants born in California. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 34(2): 130-138. 
  • Cao, Y., Carrillo, A. S., Jankowska, M. M., & Shi, Y. (2020). Validation of secondary data sources for enumerating marijuana dispensaries in a state commercializing marijuana. Drug and alcohol dependence, 215, 108183.
  • Chang, Y. J., Bellettiere, J., Godbole, S., Keshavarz, S., Maestas, J. P., Unkart, J. T., Ervin, D., Allison, M. A., Rock, C. L., Patterson, R. E., Jankowska, M. M., Kerr, J., Natarajan, L., & Sears, D. D. (2020). Total Sitting Time and Sitting Pattern in Postmenopausal Women Differ by Hispanic Ethnicity and are Associated With Cardiometabolic Risk Biomarkers. Journal of the American Heart Association, 9(4), e013403.
  • Nakandala, S., Jankowska, M. M., Tuz-Zahra, F., Bellettiere, J., Carlson, J. A., LaCroix, A. Z., Hartman, S. J., Rosenberg, D. E., Zou, J., Kumar, A., & Natarajan, L. (2021). Application of Convolutional Neural Network Algorithms for Advancing Sedentary and Activity Bout Classification, Journal for the Measurement of Physical Behaviour, 4(2), 102-110.