Kathryn McConnell
I am an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Sociology, where I study the impacts of climate hazards on the built environment and population mobility. Much of my recent research examines the socioeconomic dynamics of wildfires, and includes publications on post-fire migration, neighborhood change, housing vacancies, and the idea of wildfire managed retreat. I have received funding for this work from the U.S. National Science Foundation (Sociology, HEGS, and HDBE programs) and NASA.
I completed my PhD at Yale School of the Environment (2022), where my dissertation examined wildfire-related displacement and migration. Prior to Joining UBC, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Brown University’s Population Studies and Training Center, where I constructed a national migration systems dataset of the U.S. using restricted census records.