Michelle Annette Meyer

Michelle Annette Meyer, Ph.D. is the assistant executive director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. Meyer's research interests include disaster recovery and mitigation, environmental sociology and community sustainability, and the interplay between environmental conditions and social vulnerability. Particularly, Meyer studies inequality and how disaster and environmental settings intersect with structural forces that maintain or transform inequality. She uses the lens of social capital and collective efficacy to theoretically understand how relationships between individuals and between governmental and nongovernmental organizations generate or hinder disaster risk and recovery. Hence, her interests have led her to research expansively on volunteer organizations, volunteerism, and philanthropy in disaster. Meyer’s projects focus on disaster risk perception, social capital in disaster resilience, nonprofit collaboration for disaster recovery, organizational energy conservation, volunteer training program evaluation, evaluation of disaster response plans for individuals with disabilities, social media use among vulnerable populations, how to increase protective action, citizen science protocols for measuring storm-water condition equity, and environmental attitudes and behaviors. She has conducted research in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, New York, California, Sri Lanka, and Haiti. She teaches research methods and statistics, sociology of disaster, environmental sociology, environmental justice, and hazard mitigation and recovery. She has worked with over 12 undergraduates on research projects, most of which are from groups that are underrepresented in science. She also regularly collaborates with nonprofit organizations on applied research including t.e.j.a.s. (Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Service), GeoHazards International, local long-term recovery organizations, Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), the American Planning Association, as well as with high school students. Learn more here: https://michelleameyer.weebly.com/