Dr. Francesca Macaluso is a research scientist at the Colorado School of Public Health’s Centers for Health, Work & Environment and Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. She has supported a diverse portfolio of research projects ranging from environmental and climate-related exposures and human health impacts in southwestern Colorado to tobacco and cannabis use behaviors and novel exposures from vaping products. Her dissertation work, completed in Spring 2025, focused on health risks of Colorado market cannabis products, secondhand aerosol exposures from vaping, and opportunities for growth in Colorado’s tobacco and cannabis policy and regulatory landscapes. In her current role, she leads investigations of state surveillance data on tobacco use and other health behaviors in partnership with the State Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership. Her work emphasizes the importance of understanding motivations for tobacco and cannabis use and the intricacies of these behaviors in order to predict long-term health impacts and develop appropriate prevention programming and public policy.