Elizabeth Fussell

Professor of Population Studies & Environment and Society, Brown University

Chapter Member: Boston SSN

Areas of Expertise:

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About Elizabeth

Fussell's research focuses on migration in response to environmental events and changes. Overarching themes in Fussell's recent research projects and publications focus on: race; ethnic; and other social inequalities in disaster impacts and responses; the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans's population; and population change in Puerto Rico. Fussell is Editor-in-Chief of Population and Environment. She also coordinates the Leadership Alliance Summer Research Early Identification Program for the Institute at Brown on Environment and Society and the Population Studies and Training Center.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: Psychological Problems for Poor Mothers Five Years after Hurricane Katrina

Elizabeth Fussell
Jean E. Rhodes

Key Findings Brief, October 2012

No Jargon Podcast

Episode 261:
Disaster Management in the Era of Climate Change

July 2024

In the News

Opinion: "The World Population Hit 8 Billion-With a Peak in Sight. What Lessons Does That Have for Climate Change?," Elizabeth Fussell (with Margaret E. Greene), The Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2022.

Opinion: "The World Population Hit 8 Billion — But With a Peak in Sight. What Lessons Does That Have for Climate Change?," Elizabeth Fussell, The Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2022.

Opinion: "Who Will Protect Recovery Workers after the 2017 Hurricanes?," Elizabeth Fussell, The Advocate, October 9, 2017.

Quoted by Dylan Matthews in "What the Hurricane Maria Migration Will Do to Puerto Rico — and the U.S.," Vox, October 5, 2017.

Interviewed in "Here Comes Irene: Have We Learned from Katrina?," The Grio, August 26, 2011.

Research discussed by David Biello, in "Climate Change May Mean More Mexican Immigration," Scientific American, July 26, 2010.

Opinion: "Leaving New Orleans: Social Stratification, Networks, and Hurricane Evacuation," Elizabeth Fussell, Social Science Research Council’s “Understanding Katrina”, June 11, 2006.

Opinion: "Who Returned to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina?," Elizabeth Fussell (with Narayan Sastry and Mark VanLandingham), Population Reference Bureau, July 2010.

Publications

"Help from Family, Friends, and Strangers during Hurricane Katrina: The Limits of Social Networks" in Displaced: Voices from the Katrina Diaspora, edited by Lynn Weber and Lori Peek (University of Texas Press, 2012), 150-166.

Investigates how informal social networks assisted, or failed to assist, low-income, minority mothers after Hurricane Katrina.

"The Deportation Threat Dynamic and Victimization of Latino Migrants: Wage Theft and Street Robbery" The Sociological Quarterly 52, no. 4 (2011): 593-615.

Investigates the factors that produced and heightened Latino migrant workers’ vulnerability to robbery and wage theft, fear of deportation being chief among them.

"Race, Socio-economic Status, and Return Migration to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina" (with Narayan Sastry and Mark VanLandingham). Population & Environment 31 (2010): 20-42.

Looks at patterns and trends in return migration to post-Katrina New Orleans by displaced residents; concludes that delays seen in the return of black residents can be attributed to predominantly black communities having absorbed greater housing and infrastructure damage.

"Hurricane Chasers in New Orleans: Latino Immigrants as a Source of a Rapid Response Labor Force" Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 31, no. 3 (2009): 375-394.

Uses data from surveys collected at the Brazilian, Mexican, and Nicaraguan consulates to describe the “rapid response labor force” of internally mobile immigrants who arrived to rebuild New Orleans after the hurricane, and their methods for overcoming labor market disadvantages.