2021 Natural Hazards Workshop Award Winners
Mary Fran Myers Scholarship
The Mary Fran Myers Scholarship recognizes outstanding individuals who share Myers' commitment to disaster research and practice and have the potential to make a lasting contribution to reducing disaster vulnerability. The 2021 scholarship winner is:
Denboy Kudejira
Denboy Kudejira was born and raised in Zimbabwe and joined the department of anthropology at Memorial University in Canada as a PhD candidate in 2018. His research centers on the anthropology of natural hazards with a particular focus on disasters and humanitarianism. Through his PhD research, Kudejira is retracing Cyclone Idai, which left a trail of destruction in the eastern districts of Zimbabwe in March 2019. He seeks to generate knowledge on the extent to which survivors of the cyclone have benefited from the interventions of providers of humanitarian assistance. Aside from shedding light on how the humanitarian support now being provided to cyclone survivors can be enhanced, his work also endeavors to develop strategies and best practices that can be adopted to improve the coordination of humanitarian assistance in similar situations.
Kudejira draws motivation and inspiration from years of experience working with various international and local humanitarian agencies in southern Africa. Before joining Memorial University, he spent more than fifteen years leading disaster response, food security, public health, and policy advocacy initiatives in the region.
Kudejira also holds a Master of Arts degree in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University, a Master of Philosophy degree in Land and Agrarian Studies from the University of Western Cape in South Africa and a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Sciences from Bindura University of Science Education in Zimbabwe.
Learn more about the scholarship and view past winners on the Mary Fran Myers Scholarship page.
Mary Fran Myers Gender and Disaster Award
Melinda González
Melinda González is an Afro-Indigenous scholar, activist, and poet of Puerto Rican descent. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist who focuses on environmental anthropology and whose work maps how disaster impacts are differentially distributed across race, class, and gender. González uses decolonial and indigenous research methods to study new media technologies in environmental justice research.
A native of Newark, New Jersey, with an ancestral home in Moca, Puerto Rico, González’s dissertation research “Rhyming Through Disaster” examined the lived experiences of the survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and New York and how they used digital space, poetry, and community organizing in long-term disaster recovery. Her next project, tentatively titled, “Urban Water Wars,” will address racial disparities in the ongoing water crises in U.S. urban centers, particularly in Newark.
González received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Barnard College, Columbia University, where her undergraduate research focused on the role of women in the New York Chapter of the Puerto Rican revolutionary civil rights organization, The Young Lords Party. In October 2012, she graduated with a master’s degree in anthropology from Rutgers University. Her work there examined poetry and hip hop as tools of resistance against femicide and colonial repression in Mexico and Puerto Rico. She received a PhD in Anthropology from Louisiana State University in May 2021 and will serve as a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers’ Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice in the fall. González has engaged in collaborative ethnographic writing and research on feminist anthropological approaches to creating research methods for anthropologists with disabilities and single parents in the academy. She believes that decolonizing the academy starts with providing graduate students and contingent faculty with livable wages and access to free medical and mental health care.
González is also a performance and spoken-word poet and a practitioner of the Brazilian martial art capoeira.
Learn more about the award and view past winners on the Mary Fran Myers Gender and Disaster Award page.
Disability and Disasters Award Recipient
Kimberly R. Mills is the senior executive director of the Virgin Islands University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (VIUCEDD) at University of the Virgin Islands and an affiliate faculty member with the University of Hawaii’s Center for Disabilities Studies. She has more than 20 years of experience in executive management, direct service, research, technical assistance and clinical management and is a doctoral level board-certified behavior analyst.
Mills’ research and community priorities include best treatment practices for autism spectrum disorders, technical assistance and evaluation, study of phenomenon surrounding the school-to-prison pipeline, cultural and linguistic competence through a behavioral analytic lens, disability employment, health disparities research, and emergency preparedness.
Mills lived through through two back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes in the Virgin Islands while helping to usher her organization and the U.S. Virgin Islands disability community navigate the disasters—which decimated the region—as well. She actively participates on many local and national boards, work groups, and special interest groups related to disaster preparedness and prevention for people with disabilities.
Mills is a professional fellow in the Professional Fellows Program on Inclusive Disability Employment program at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which supports mid-career professionals from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. She is a member of the board of directors of the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs (ATAP) that oversees the operations of ATAP in each state, as well as in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Learn more about the award on the Disability and Disasters Award page.
Student Paper Competition
The Natural Hazards Center created the Annual Hazards and Disasters Student Paper Competition for undergraduate and graduate students in 2004 as a way to recognize and promote the next generation of hazards and disaster researchers. The 2021 winner is:
Felicia A. Henry is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include race, ethnicity, gender, criminal justice/mass incarceration, social vulnerability and resilience in disasters, and communities. A licensed social worker, Henry received her Master of Social Work degree from the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Bill Anderson Fund Fellow and Recipient of the Unidel Award in Sociology & Criminal Justice and the University Unidel Distinguished Graduate Scholar Award. Previously, Felicia was a Program Manager for Diversion and Reintegration at the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, where she oversaw the implementation of an array of diversion, re-entry, and gender-specific programming that served individuals leaving New York City's jails. Henry is the founder of Behind the Walls, Between the Lines (BTWBTL). BTWBTL is a movement to deepen the awareness of the legacy of racial inequity in America, particularly within the criminal justice system, and inspire activism aimed at its dismantlement. Read her winning paper here.
Learn more about the competition and view previous winning papers on the Student Paper Competition page.