Woi Sok Oh (He/Him)

Dr. Woi Sok Oh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He computationally investigates human-environmental interactions, often with physical infrastructure and institutions, focusing on their nonlinear sustainability. He studies diverse socio-environmental challenges, including climate migration, armed conflict, clean energy adoption, disaster management, resource management, and climate justice. By nature of problems, he uses data-driven and quantitative techniques from complex systems science to analyze nonlinear, higher-order dynamics (network analysis, causal discovery, global sensitivity analysis, etc.) and develop useful models (dynamical system modeling, game-theoretical modeling, agent-based modeling, network modeling, machine learning modeling, etc.) for sustainable policymaking.

Before joining the University of Waterloo, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering at the Ohio State University. He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the High Meadows Environmental Institute and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. Dr. Oh received his Ph.D. degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Florida and his Bachelor's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Yonsei University, South Korea.

• coupled natural-human systems

• migration

• armed conflict

• resource management

• disaster management

• climate justice

• complex systems modeling

• cascading/spreading of social behaviors

• evolutionary game-theoretical modeling

• network theory

• 2021, Doctorate, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida, USA

• 2015, Bachelor of Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, South Korea

• 2023, KSCEE Young Researcher of the Year Award, Korean-American Society of Civil and Environmental Engineers

• 2017, Pathfinder Fellowship, Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida

• Oh, W., Muneepeerakul, R., Rubenstein, D., & Levin, S. (2024). Emergent network patterns of internal displacement in Somalia driven by natural disasters and conflicts. Global Environmental Change, 84, 102793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102793

• Oh, W., Yu, D. J., & Muneepeerakul, R. (2021). Efficiency-fairness trade-offs in evacuation management of urban floods: The effects of the shelter capacity and zone prioritization. Plos one, 16(6), e0253395. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253395