#16 COVIDCalls 4.6.2020 – Disaster Researchers’ Roundtable

How is the disaster of COVID-19 impacting how early career disaster researchers are approaching their own research? How will academia in general react to the crisis and how will that affect graduate students and early career researchers? Dr. Nnenia Campbell, a research associate at the Natural Hazards Center of University of Colorado-Boulder, Dr. Ryan Hagen, a postdoctoral scholar in Sociology at Columbia University, Dr. Yeonsil Kang, a visiting assistant professor in History at Drexel University Zachary Loeb, a PhD Candidate in History and Sociology of Science at University of Pennsylvania, and Valerie Marlowe, Assistant Director of Archives and Collections at the Disaster Research Center of University of Delaware, all rising disaster researchers discuss how COVID-19 has affected their ongoing work. The roundtable talks about how disaster researchers and academics can prove their value beyond the classroom. The researchers discuss how academic work can be applied, communicated, and used to raise awareness. They also talk about the ethics and practicalities of doing research while the COVID-19 crisis is ongoing. For further reading: The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago The Foxfire Museum: COVID-19 Oral History Project