Kathryn McConnell is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her research examines the social dynamics of climate change, with a focus on the intersection of climate hazards, the built environment, and mobility. This work is motivated by using social science tools to inform equitable climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. Prior to joining UBC, Dr. McConnell was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University’s Population Studies and Training Center.

SOCI 420: Sociology of the Environment

SOCI 360: Sociology and Natural Resources

SOCI 330: Sociology of Climate Change Adaptation (planned 2027)

As climate change makes many places around the world increasingly dangerous to live in, how are individuals, communities, and institutions responding to these risks? How can social science tools support equitable adaptation and mitigation strategies under growing environmental pressures? Motivated by these questions, my research is primarily focused on: (1) relationships between the environment and migration, and (2) changes to housing and infrastructure as a result of and in response to climate-related hazards. I utilize mixed methodological tools to address these questions, often drawing on spatially-explicit biophysical data and collaborating with scholars across disciplines such as urban planning and engineering.

Environment & mobility: I study how increasingly frequent extreme weather events influence migration dynamics. My research in this area includes a national study of the effects of wildfire destruction on migration patterns in the United States and an evaluation of managed retreat (i.e. planned relocation) as an adaptive response to wildfire. In ongoing research, I examine how wildfire-related changes in home insurance markets are associated with residents’ migration aspirations and capabilities. In another ongoing project, I use restricted U.S. Census records to describe age-specific migration patterns between urban and rural places. To overcome longstanding limitations of internal migration data, much of my research on environmental mobility uses or constructs novel datasets, including digital trace data, restricted administrative records, and mail delivery records.

Built environments: In this line of research, I examine physical changes to the built environment as a result of and in response to climate-related hazards. My recent work in this area includes studies documenting socially uneven wildfire impacts across different housing types, planned power outages as a form of maladaptation, and the prevalence of wildfires in urban areas. In a new project supported by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, I integrate property records with high-resolution remote sensing imagery to test hypotheses about housing recovery and gentrification following major wildfire events. Throughout this work, I trace the ways that the physical environment and social processes shape each other, with implications for how climate hazards are distributed.

Selected publications:

McConnell, K., Mueller, J. Tom, Burow, Paul B., and St. Denis, Lise. “Urban areas in the United States experience substantial wildfire impacts.” Forthcoming in Communications Earth & Environment.

Burrows, Kate, McConnell, Kathryn, Schwaller, Nora Louise, and Pheiffer, Chantel. “De-energization as maladaptation: Uneven residential exposure to wildfire Public Safety Power Shutoffs and compound heat.” Global Environmental Change 95 (2025): 103067.

McConnell, Kathryn, Fussell, E., DeWaard, J., Whitaker, S., Curtis, K.J., St. Denis, L., Balch, J., and Price, K. “Rare and highly destructive wildfires drive human migration in the U.S.” Nature Communications 15 (2024).

McConnell, Kathryn, and Christian V. Braneon. “Post-wildfire neighborhood change: evidence from the 2018 Camp Fire.” Landscape and urban planning 247 (2024): 104997.

McConnell, Kathryn, and Liz Koslov. “Critically assessing the idea of wildfire managed retreat.” Environmental Research Letters 19, no. 4 (2024): 041005.

McConnell, Kathryn, J. Tom Mueller, Alexis A. Merdjanoff, Paul Berne Burow, and Justin Farrell. “Informal Modes of Social Support among Residents of the Rural American West during the COVID‐19 Pandemic.” Rural Sociology 88, no. 4 (2023): 972-1000.

McConnell, Kathryn. “‘The Green New Deal’ as partisan cue: Evidence from a survey experiment in the rural US.” Environmental Politics 32, no. 3 (2023): 452-484.

Farrell, Justin, Paul Berne Burow, Kathryn McConnell, Jude Bayham, Kyle Whyte, and Gal Koss. “Effects of land dispossession and forced migration on Indigenous peoples in North America.” Science 374, no. 6567 (2021): eabe4943.

Mueller, J. Tom, Kathryn McConnell, Paul Berne Burow, Katie Pofahl, Alexis A. Merdjanoff, and Justin Farrell. “Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural America.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 1 (2021): 2019378118.

I have received external awards and fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Sociology), U.S. National Science Foundation (Sociology; Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences; and Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment programs), and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Climate Change Research Initiative.

Affiliate, UBC Centre for Migration Studies

Network Member, UBC Disaster Resilience Research Network