Michelle A. Meyer

Biography

Before joining LSU Department of Sociology in 2014, she was a post-doc researcher with the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. She completed a Ph.D. in Sociology at Colorado State University in 2013, and received a BA in Sociology from Murray State University. She is a Next Generation of Hazard and Disasters Researchers Fellow and also an Early-Career Research Fellow with the Gulf Research Program 2016. Her research interests include environmental sociology and community sustainability, disaster resilience and mitigation, climate change displacement, environmental justice, and the interplay between environmental conditions and social vulnerability. She has worked on various projects, including analyzing governmental and nonprofit networks in long-term recovery; assessing variation in use of social media by population groups during disasters; assessing earthquake protective action messaging in Haiti; comparing disaster recovery following technological and natural disasters; assessing the inclusion of disability in emergency management planning; studying energy efficient building practices; analyzing social capital and collective efficacy for individual and community resilience; developing participatory GIS activities to assess environmental and climate justice in marginalized communities; among others. Her research has been funded by NSF, NAS, PERISHIP Dissertation Fellowship, Midwest Sociological Society, and Rural Sociological Society. She collaborates on research with organizations including GeoHazards International, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, and t.e.j.a.s. for environmental justice. She teaches research methods, environmental sociology, and sociology of disasters, and was selected by the undergraduate Sociological Society as Professor of the Year during her first year on the faculty. Recently, her dissertation received the Samuel H. Prince Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Hazards and Disasters by the ISA's International Research Committee on Disasters for dissertations completed between 2010 and 2014.

Research Interest

Her research interests include environmental sociology and community sustainability, disaster resilience and mitigation, climate change displacement, environmental justice, and the interplay between environmental conditions and social vulnerability.