2026 Moore Fellowship Winner: Abdulla Al Kafy

Tell us about yourself. At what point did you decide to pursue this particular line of research, and what influenced that decision? 

I grew up and worked in Bangladesh, where I spent years studying how cities grow, how heat accumulates in them, and how that impacts residents. When I moved to Austin in 2022, I didn’t expect heat to follow me—but it did, in a meaningful way. That first summer, my paternal cousin, who had lived in Austin for 15 years, suffered a serious heat-related illness that later led to significant mental health struggles. Then I saw my elderly neighbor go through something similar. These weren’t just data points to me. They were people I cared about, and I couldn’t look away. Coupled with living through Austin’s record-breaking stretch of 45+ consecutive days over 100°F in 2023, I knew exactly what my research had to focus on. 

Your dissertation is titled “ThermalMind: Developing a Crisis-Responsive Framework for Heat Related Psychological Resilience in Texas Communities.” What questions are you trying to answer with this work? 

I’m particularly curious about what happens to people’s mental health when their community faces intense heat. It’s important to understand not just where heat poses the biggest danger, but also where mental health services might be least prepared to respond. By doing so, we can better predict and prevent crises before they escalate. Heat isn’t just about physical health like heatstroke; it also affects mental well-being by disrupting sleep, increasing anxiety, causing people to stay indoors, and worsening existing mental health conditions. My goal is to create a helpful framework that sees heat as a mental health emergency and equips decision-makers with the tools they need to act early and save lives. 

What gaps in the literature will be filled by your study? Who stands to benefit from it? 

A review by Columbia University in 2025 looked at heat emergency plans across 24 countries and found that fewer than  1 in 4 include any specific mental health intervention at all. Texas isn’t an exception — our emergency strategies mainly focus on physical health, so the psychological impacts of extreme heat often go unnoticed. 

There’s also a quieter, yet equally important challenge: how we measure heat risk depends a lot on what geographic area we look at — whether it’s a city block, a census tract, or a whole county. The same neighborhood might seem low-risk or high-risk based on that choice, and estimates can vary widely depending on the scale. This can lead to resources like cooling centers, mental health services, and emergency funds ending up in the wrong places — not because the need isn’t there, but because the maps are drawn differently. 

My research aims to address this by developing methods that provide consistent, reliable heat-exposure estimates regardless of the geographic scale. The people who stand to benefit the most are those already carrying the heaviest burden: elderly Texans, rural residents who often have to travel significant distances—sometimes over an hour— to reach the nearest mental health support, unhoused individuals, and Black Texans, who nationally face heat-related mortality rates nearly twice as high as white Americans. 

How do you think your research methods and approach will help you answer the questions that you’re posing? 

 I combine satellite images, street-level environmental data, mental health records, and insights from Texans living in heat-vulnerable communities. This includes everything from tree canopy coverage and building density to how people truly feel and cope during extreme heat. My aim is to create a comprehensive picture of vulnerability that works at all scales and across different areas—from busy urban neighborhoods in Houston to rural counties in West Texas. By combining these various layers of data and reflecting the real experiences of people across the state, the ThermalMind Framework can identify not just where the heat is most intense, but also where the psychological toll is the greatest and where support systems are most limited. This helps emergency managers, healthcare professionals, and local health departments take meaningful action where it’s needed most. 

 
Are there any suggested readings you can recommend for those who might be interested in learning more about the topic?

A wonderful starting point is the National Integrated Heat Health Information System’s Heat and Health Tracker and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s HeatRisk Dashboard — both are freely available and do a fantastic job of illustrating how heat is becoming a year-round public health concern. For insights into mental health, consider the research by Dr. Asim Shah of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine on heat and mood disorders. And to understand Texas’s climate future, the Texas State Climatologist’s annual climate reports are enlightening and provide a clear perspective on all of this.

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