Armita Davarpanah, Ph.D.

Biography

Faculty Member Since 2015

Armita Davarpanah, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of environmental and health sciences at Spelman College whose interdisciplinary background in Earth and environmental sciences, and data science enables her to address complex environmental and societal challenges.

Her work focuses on developing domain ontologies as a semantic bridge between artificial intelligence and natural and anthropogenic systems. Through the integration of semantic technologies, knowledge graphs, GraphRAG frameworks, and geospatial analytics, she transforms complex and heterogeneous environmental, geological, geospatial, infrastructure, and demographic data into machine-readable knowledge that supports data integration, analysis, and decision-making. Research applications include critical minerals, environmental justice, climate resilience, sustainability, and flood risk management.

Dr. Davarpanah has led and collaborated on projects supported by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Science Foundation (NSF), Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), Sustain Our Future Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Spelman College. She has been competitively selected for prestigious research fellowships and appointments with the U.S. Department of Defense, including the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, as well as the Sloan Data Science Faculty Fellows Program.

During her federal research appointments, she developed ontology-driven frameworks, knowledge graphs, and GraphRAG systems for integrating, analyzing, and querying complex geospatial, environmental, and infrastructure data. Her recent research applies semantic technologies and artificial intelligence to critical mineral and rare earth element systems, supporting sustainable resource management, critical mineral supply chains, clean energy technologies, cosmetic and consumer product industries, and public health.

Passionate about teaching and mentoring, Dr. Davarpanah embraces a lifelong learning philosophy and has taught a wide range of interdisciplinary courses in Earth and environmental sciences, sustainability, and geospatial technologies at both public and private institutions, including Georgia State University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Emory University, since 2014. She is committed to integrating emerging technologies into the classroom while combining theory, research, and experiential learning.

As a geospatial scientist, she understands the importance of location, place, and boundaries in shaping human and environmental systems. Yet she believes that education is one of the most powerful forces for overcoming barriers and creating opportunities. While geography can shape where we start, education can expand where we go. Through teaching, mentoring, and research, she seeks to empower students to become confident scholars, innovators, and leaders capable of making meaningful contributions to their communities and the world.

Education

• Ph.D., Georgia State University Departments
• M.S. Georgia State University
• B.S. Azad University, Iran

Courses Taught

Introductory Courses

• Geoscience (Physical and Historical Geology, Introduction to Landforms, Integrated Earth Science (NSCI)
• Mineralogy, Weather and Climate
• Air and Atmospheric Science
• Environment (Environmental Science, Environmental Biology)

Specialized Courses

• Crystal and Optical Mineralogy
• Geographic Information Science (GIS)
• Global Climate Change
• Water Resources and Management
• Sustainable Development and Industrial Ecology

Core courses within the environmental science major/minor, dual-degree environmental engineering concentration, and pre-health careers and graduate school tracks include:

• Introduction to Environmental Science and Laboratory (ES 211)
• Introduction to Geosciences and Laboratory (ES 252)
• Air and Atmospheric Science and Laboratory (ES 251)
• Sustainable Development (ES 315), Global Environmental Change (ES 425)
• Environmental Science Research (ES 435)
• Applications in Environmental Science (ES 452B
• Capstone Experience, and Water Resources and Management (ES 312)

Elective and interdisciplinary courses include:

• Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (SES 232)
• Energy Sustainability (ES 216)
• Environmental Biology
• Environmental Health (ES 200)
• Research Inquiries in Health Science (SHSP 402)

Research Interests

Dr. Davarpanah is an Earth/environmental scientist with expertise in geoscience and GIScience. Her research interests lie at the intersection of these two fields with geoinformatics, focusing on geospatial and knowledge modeling by building ontologies. She applies the geospatial semantics approach to investigating geological, environmental, and urban problems.

Her Research Involves:
Dr. Davarpanah’s research ranges from semantic modeling of natural hazards (flood, monsoon) and resources (water, energy, food, and rare earth elements), impact of climate change on UNSDG data, and environmental contamination and justice applying ontologies.

Research
Semantic modeling of the following:

• The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Socioeconomic Status (SES) with a focus on

Environmental Justice

• 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs)
  The role of Science, technology, and innovation (STI) in the implementation of the (UNSDGs)
• Natural hazards (e.g., flood, monsoon)
• Rare earth element (REE) mineral system

Student Projects

• Spatio-temporal analysis of surface and groundwater contamination in the Chattahoochee River
• GIS-based analysis of oil pollution in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria

Recent Projects

• Cenozoic sedimentation and extensional events around the Eastern Snake River Plain
• Projecting pathways to food-energy-water (FEW) sustainability through ontology
• Anisotropy of fractal dimension of normal faults in the northern Rocky Mountains.
• Exploration of karst aquifers applying spatial analysis, geostatistics, and hydrogeology
• Semantic modeling of plastic deformation of rocks
• Ph.D. dissertation: Spatio-Temporal Analyses of Cenozoic Normal Faulting, Graben Basin Sedimentation, and Volcanism around the Snake River Plain, SE Idaho and SW Montana
• M.S. thesis: Petrographic and geochemical analyses applying polarized light microscopy (PLM), electron microprobe (EPMA/EMX, isotope dilution mass spectrometry (ID-MS), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF).

Select Publications

• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A., Elliott, W. C., Tang, Y., Schroeder, P. A. (2026).
• GraphRAG and LLM-driven semantic exploration of critical mineral data. Computers and Geosciences, 214, 106197.
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A. (2026). An ontology-driven query system for mineral identification in virtual geoscience labs. Environmental Modeling and Software, 199, 106936.
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A., Shafiei, F., and Jelks, N. O. (2025). Semantic knowledge and data modeling of environmental justice. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 159, 111736.  
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A., and Elliott, W. (2024). Knowledge-based decision support system for critical minerals. Applied Computing and Geosciences, 22, 100167. 
• Davarpanah, A., Lipscomb, M. R., Scully, E. J., and Morris, A. L. (2025). Flood-risk governance through hybrid LLM–Graph RAG: A query framework for the National Levee Database. Semantic Technology for Intelligence, Defense, and Security (STIDS) Conference 
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A., Dhakal, N. (2023). Semantic modeling of climate change impacts on the implementation of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, water, and energy. Earth Science Informatics, 16, 929–947.  
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A., Huang, G. (2023). Climate System Ontology: A formal specification of the complex climate system. In M. SaberiKamarposhti and M. Sahlabadi (Eds.), Latest Advances and New Visions of Ontology in Information Science. IntechOpen. 
• Babaie, H. A., Davarpanah, A., and Elliott, W. C. (2023). Ontology of the complex rare-earth mineral system. In X. Ma, M. Mookerjee, L. Hsu, and D. Hills (Eds.), Recent Advancements in Geoinformatics and Data Science (Geological Society of America Special Paper 558, pp. 29– 44).
• Babaie, H. A., Davarpanah, A., Dhakal, N. (2019). Projecting pathways to food-energy-water systems sustainability through ontology. Environmental Engineering Science, 36, 808–819.
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A., Dai, D. (2018). Spatial autocorrelation of Neogene–Quaternary lava along the Snake River Plain, Idaho, USA. Earth Science Informatics, 11, 59–75.
• Davarpanah, A., Babaie, H. A. (2013). Anisotropy of fractal dimension of normal faults in northern Rocky Mountains: Implications for the kinematics of Cenozoic extension and Yellowstone hotspot's thermal expansion. Tectonophysics, 608, 530–544.