Assistant Professor
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston)
Dr. Juan Aguilera is an Assistant Professor at UTHealth and passionate about advancing public health and reducing health disparities. His research focuses on the interplay of environmental exposures, nutrition, and physical activity on body composition and cardiorespiratory health, with a particular emphasis on obesity, metabolic syndrome, asthma, and the immune response. Juan is also interested in the impact of air pollution exposure during pregnancy on maternal and neonatal health, including the spatial analysis of health disparities for metabolic risk. Born in Ciudad Juarez, Juan is a native of The Paso Del Norte region, a binational metropolitan area within the US-Mexico border. Prior to his current position, Juan served as the Director of Translational Environmental and Climate Health at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research at Stanford University. Juan's goal is to conduct research that will influence policy change to protect at-risk populations and underserved communities. His previous works have shown the negative effects of traffic-related air pollutants on physical activity in children with asthma as well as the associations of traffic with obesity and metabolic syndrome in low-income populations from border communities.