Our Students

  • Olivia Casey
  • Title: Ph.D. Candidate, Education with a concentration in Theory, Organization and Policy
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In late fall 2022, Olivia Casey, doctoral candidate in Education with a concentration in Theory, Organization and Policy, attended the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital’s 2022 Annual Conference: “Population andClimate Change: The Defining Relationship of the 21st century” in Vienna, Austria. The conference was predominantly focused on the negative impacts which the climate crisis will have in the twenty-first century on various aspects of human health, well-being, and reproduction, as well as how climate change will influence mobility and migration patterns.  Olivia explained, “Across the presentations, the conference illuminated the ways in which the effects and vulnerabilitiesof climate disaster are very unevenly distributed across populations— varying across dimensions of space and place, socioeconomic class, age, gender, education, and many other characteristics. The conference also covered themes of coping with the climate crisis and strategies for climate adaptation (e.g,  migration, diversification in agriculture, behavioral changes), but underlined the fact that all adaptation strategies will have limits, as we reach temperatures where it is no longer possible to adapt (as well as material limitations to adaptation for less privileged populations).”

Oliva further noted, “this trip has benefitted my scholarship tremendously as I had the opportunity to extensivelyconnect with and be in conversation with a wide variety of leading demographers, economists, and population experts who work at the University of Vienna, the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. I had many conversations that were extremely generative for my thinking around the direction of my future dissertation research. Additionally, I formed several strong relationships with individuals who I hope to collaborate with in my future research, as potential interlocutors for qualitative research interviews andparticipant observation. It was a truly invaluable experience to have an opportunity to meet these individuals as they serve as key figures within the field and topic I am studying.”