People

Dr. Dan Li is an Assistant Professor at Florida International University whose research connects climate hazards with infrastructure, economic, and financial risk.

Her research examines how hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires affect communities, infrastructure systems, and financial stability. She develops physics-informed machine learning methods that connect hazard forecasting, vulnerability assessment, and economic loss modeling with practical risk-management strategies, including catastrophe modeling, parametric insurance, and climate-risk financing. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Tampa Bay Water, and TIAA, and includes collaborations across the public sector, insurance, reinsurance, and finance.

Before joining FIU in August 2026, Dr. Li was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute for Risk Management and Insurance Innovation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked with Professor Greg Characklis. She received her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan, where she worked with Professor Peter Adriaens. Before entering academia, she also worked in the financial industry.

Nilima Islam Luba is an environmental social scientist with a Ph.D. in Earth System Science from Florida International University (FIU). Her research examines how natural hazards, resource insecurity, and environmental change affect communities, with a focus on vulnerability and resilience. She works with multidisciplinary datasets and uses statistical modeling, qualitative methods, and geospatial analysis to study environmental and socioeconomic impacts. She also holds an M.S. in Environmental Studies from FIU and a bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Bangladesh.