Life Chances Lab | Dylan Connor

The Life Chances Lab

The Life Chances Lab investigates how neighborhoods and regions shape access to wealth, education, and long, healthy, and meaningful lives—what we broadly define as opportunity. Rather than treating opportunity as a static formula, we see it as a dynamic force that flows through places over time. Our core mission is to understand how communities adapt and reinvent themselves to expand life chances across generations.

Core Infrastructure

To map the long-term geography of life chances, the lab engineers synthetic population microsimulation and GeoAI architectures using large-scale data. Our empirical scope covers multiple continents, spanning from the nineteenth century to the present day. We investigate how places shape human potential across several key dimensions, including upward economic mobility, population health, and resilience to hazards. This work centers on our flagship GEOWEALTH infrastructure, co-led with Tom Kemeny (University of Toronto).

Student Mentorship and Collaboration

Working with energetic, creative, and motivated scholars is the best part of my work. Having trained under an exceptional mentor in Leah Boustan (Yale University), I strive to provide the same level of rigorous support and guidance to my own graduate and undergraduate collaborators. My commitment to teaching and student success was recognized with the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (SGSUP) Faculty Excellence in Mentorship and Teaching Award.

We welcome prospective lab members whose research interests align directly with our core priorities.

Zhining Gu

PhD Candidate in Geographical Information Science

Zhining's dissertation is in progress.

Nikita Soni

PhD Candidate in Geographical Information Science

Nikita's dissertation is in progress.

Jiwon Jang

PhD Alumni (Graduated 2026) | Placement: University of Toronto, post-doc

Dissertation title: "Where People Cross the Lines: Measuring Neighborhood Connectivity and its Implications for Cognitive Aging"

Garima Jain

PhD Alumni (Graduated 2025) | Placement: Stanford University, post-doc; Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina

Dissertation title: "Tangled up in Blue Patterns, drivers, and feedback of aquaculture landscapes and livelihood transitions in coastal India" | 2026 J. Warren Nystrom Award Winner | Co-supervised with Billie Lee Turner II (Arizona State University)

Yilei Yu

PhD Alumni (Graduated 2025) | Placement: Rice University, post-doc

Dissertation title: "Spatial Data Science for Natural Hazards and the Built Environment"

Alex Cliff

PhD Alumni (Graduated 2025) | Placement: Industry, GIS Logistics

Dissertation title: "Mapping Flood Resilience: Spatial Data Science, Policy Attention, and the Exposure of Businesses to Flooding in the United States" | Alex was co-supervised with Dr. Sara Meerow (University of Colorado Boulder)

Sarah Bardin

PhD Alumni (Graduated 2024) | Placement: Mathematica

Dissertation title: "What Works Where: A Spatial Approach to Evidence-based Policymaking" | Sarah was co-supervised with her longer-term mentor Dr. Peter Kedron (University of Santa Barbara).

Siqiao Xie

PhD Alumni (Graduated 2024) | Placement: University of Colorado Boulder, post-doc

Dissertation title "The Geography of Inequality in STEM: Immigration, Gender, and Economic Disparities in the United States" | Siqiao was co-supervised with Dr. Wei Li (Arizona State University).

Alek Berg

MA Alumni (Graduated 2023) | Placement: University of Colorado Boulder, PhD

Thesis title "A High-Resolution Recalculation of the Wildland Urban Interface Reveals over $1 Trillion of California's Residential Structures Are at Risk to Wildfire" | Alek was co-supervised with Dr. Peter Kedron (Arizona State University).