We are an interdisciplinary group of social scientists from across the country. We study the social dynamics of disasters, climate change, natural resources, and economic development and their impacts on rural communities.

Justin Farrell, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)
Justin Farrell is a professor and author at Yale University. His research tackles questions of environment, policy, conflict, and culture in the North American West using a mixture of methods, blending ethnographic fieldwork with large-scale computational techniques. A native of Wyoming, he now lives in New Haven and Denver.
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J. Tom Mueller, Ph.D.
Tom is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Utah State University. As a rural sociologist and demographer, his work focuses on rural economic development, poverty, and natural resource development in the United States.
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Kathryn McConnell
Kathryn is a PhD candidate studying sociology at Yale School of the Environment, where she researches the socioeconomic impacts of climate change. She lives in Boise, Idaho.
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Paul Berne Burow
Paul Berne Burow is a PhD Candidate at Yale University in the School of the Environment and Department of Anthropology. His work examines social belonging and ecological change in rural communities of the US West. Paul lives in Reno, Nevada.
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Katie Pofahl
Katie is a Master of Environmental Management candidate at Yale School of the Environment, where she studies land conservation practice with a focus on improving lives and livelihoods in the rural West. Before coming to Yale, Katie lived in California.
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Alexis A. Merdjanoff, Ph.D.
Alexis A. Merdjanoff, PhD, is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at New York University’s School of Global Public Health. As a public health sociologist, her work lies at the intersection of disasters, health disparities, and resilience.
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