Anuj Tiwari

Dr. Anuj Tiwari is a Senior Research Associate at the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Chicago. His expertise lies in Spatial Intelligence and Health Risk Informatics, integrating GIS, Remote Sensing, and artificial intelligence to examine the interconnections among human, animal, and environmental systems that shape health outcomes. He applies these insights to build spatially explicit, data-driven epidemiological and One Health solutions that inform proactive and equitable public health action. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Tiwari played a key role in designing and implementing Illinois’ Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) system, one of the largest and most data-integrated programs of its kind in the United States. He developed spatial analytics pipelines that guided surveillance site selection and enabled early outbreak detection across communities. Most recently, he has been leading the development of the Illinois One Health Vulnerability Dashboard, a state-scale platform that integrates human, animal, and environmental health data to identify emerging disease risks across Illinois. Using an explainable and predictive modeling framework, the dashboard demonstrates how integrated data can reveal One Health vulnerabilities affecting both people and animals. Dr. Tiwari’s other projects span diverse domains, including chronic disease (Chicago Diabetes Vulnerability), mental health (eMindGuard), urban heating (iHeatRisk), vector-borne disease (Illinois West Nile Virus Vulnerability), zoonotic risk (Chicago H5N1 Risk Assessment), and environmental hazards (Dust Storm Analysis – Southwestern United States). His work has resulted in more than 25 publications, as well as multiple oral and poster presentations. He serves as a reviewer for several international journals, including Springer Nature Computer Science, PLOS Climate, Elsevier’s Measurement, MDPI Remote Sensing, and Cambridge University Press’s Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. He is passionate about mentoring future scientists and has guided three high-school students through the IMSA Research Internship Program, over 12 graduate students in multiple research Internship programs, and 14 undergraduate students in the DPI Summer Tech Intern Program over the past two years.

Mentee: Reena Grewal