Center News

The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) CONVERGE facility, headquartered at the Natural Hazards Center, hosted two National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) participants during the summer of 2024: Bayley Dickinson from Hamilton College and Maria Huang from the University of California, Berkeley. Both undergraduate researchers brought a transdisciplinary social science approach to natural hazards and disaster research.

Bayley Dickinson (she/her) is an undergraduate studying sociology at Hamilton College. Fundamental to her passion for the field is its transdisciplinary nature. One of her favorite courses, Sociology of Health and Illness, showed her the necessity of blending disciplines to come up with viable community health solutions. Growing up in a diverse city like Los Angeles, she developed a keen interest in understanding how social identities—such as socioeconomic status, race, and gender—shape individuals’ experiences in public health and housing issues. During the summer of 2023, she served as a Levitt Summer Community Impact fellow and worked with Utica City Hall to conduct surveys and data collection to showcase the cultural diversity in Utica, New York.

While completing her NSF-REU at CONVERGE, Dickinson drafted a CONVERGE Training Module focused on emergency preparedness for unhoused populations. She also strengthened her academic writing and research skills and attended the 2024 Natural Hazards Workshop.

Maria Huang (she/her), is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in environmental economics and policy and sociology. She is passionate about environmental and social justice issues, particularly gender and racial equity. Her upbringing in an ecologically diverse region of Los Angeles inspired her conservation efforts and her participation in LA City’s HERricaneLA 2022 Emergency Preparedness Program sparked her interest in natural hazard mitigation and preparedness. Previously, Huang has conducted research with the Student Policy Institute at Berkeley, analyzing the impact of artificial intelligence and automation on labor policy and the decline of labor unions.

During her time as an NSF-REU student, Huang conducted research at CONVERGE evaluating the impact of policy on socially vulnerable subgroups in the context of hazards and disasters. Specifically, she drafted a new CONVERGE Training Module focused on fetal and maternal health. She also reviewed literature focused on convergence research. Maria noted that her participation in the program helped with her own personal and academic growth and deepened her commitment to leverage research for positive socio-political change.

Dickinson and Huang hope to further contribute to CONVERGE’s mission of advancing ethical research practices and strengthening networks between disciplinary communities to reduce harm caused by natural hazards and disasters. Lori Peek, Director of the Natural Hazards Center and leader of CONVERGE, noted that Dickinson and Huang did an outstanding job during their summer research experience. "Bayley and Maria were eager to learn and brought fresh perspectives on studying socially marginalized populations," Peek said. Further, she underscored that the work they did while at the Natural Hazards Center will be published as part of two new CONVERGE Training Modules.

At the end of the program, Dickinson and Huang presented their research findings during a symposium at the University of California San Diego. Made possible by the National Science Foundation NSF, NHERI has supported well over 100 undergraduate students from engineering over the years, and the program now supports students from the social sciences too. Learn more about the NHERI REU program here.