Bita Minaravesh

Dr. Bita Minaravesh (she/her) is a Lecturer in the Spatial Sciences Institute in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California (USC). She recently completed her time as a Postdoctoral Scholar at USC’s Equity Research Institute, where she explored the state of environmental and economic equity across California through a lens of intersectionality to promote every child’s opportunity to realize their universal right to self-determination. She employs a spatial perspective to expose the inequitable factors influencing both a child’s trajectory in the short term and a community’s opportunity for growth over generations.

Her research interests include greenspace accessibility, public schools, EV infrastructure and income security. Her dissertation in the USC Population, Health and Place doctoral program was entitled “Children’s Environmental and Developmental Equity Within Los Angeles: A Spatio-Temporal Exploration of Varying Conditions, Perspectives, and Outcomes.” Dr. Minaravesh’s research uses a variety of methodologies that implement critical human rights analysis, spatial statistics and community-driven discussions to understand the circumstances that influence transgenerational equity.

2022    Ph.D., Population, Health and Place, University of Southern California
2017    Master of Public Health, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California
2014    B.A., Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley

Minaravesh, B. (2023). The Multi-Scalar Relationship Between Children’s Self-Determination and Environmental Justice in the United States. Local Environment. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2023.2187360

Minaravesh, B., & Aydin, O. (2023). Environmental and demographic factors affecting childhood academic performance in Los Angeles County: A generalized linear elastic net regression model. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 30, 100942. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2023.100942

Hackman, D. A., Cserbik, D., Chen, J.-C., Berhane, K., Minaravesh, B., McConnell, R., & Herting, M. M. (2021). Association of Local Variation in Neighborhood Disadvantage in Metropolitan Areas with Youth Neurocognition and Brain Structure. JAMA Pediatrics, e210426–e210426. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.0426