Disaster & Resilience

Projects in this area focus on communities affected by natural disasters, how they respond and recover, as well as how communities can prepare beforehand by building resilience.

DataCorps Fellowship Wraps Up with Trip to Austin
June 29, 2026
CECE
Last week, the CECE research team and DataCorps fellows visited Austin, Texas, where we studied corpsmembers working for the Texas Conservation Corps (TXCC). The TXCC is housed under American YouthWorks (AYW), a nonprofit focused on workforce development, disaster response, and environmental restoration. The TXCC employs young people aged 16-35 to conserve natural landscapes and recreational […]
Event Recap: When Communities Need Us Most: Empowering AmeriCorps and Its Partners to Lead in Times [...]
June 25, 2026
CECE
On May 27th and 28th, CECE hosted AmeriCorps and its partners from across the country for a two-day Learning Opportunity focused on what it means to lead effectively when communities face their greatest challenges. This event brought together various AmeriCorps programs, local emergency management offices, and non-profits for cross-sector knowledge exchange and resource sharing, with […]
DataCorps Fellowship Continues with Visits to Several Sites in Los Angeles
June 17, 2026
CECE
Earlier this June, the DataCorps fellows and Workforce Development & the 4Rs research team visited Los Angeles. The first stop on our Los Angeles trip was the LA Works office, located in the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens, a beautiful green space in an otherwise bustling urban area. While there, our research team conducted […]
Second Year of DataCorps Fellowship Kicks Off With Site Visit in Seattle
June 2, 2026
CECE
On the first day of our visit, our research team visited two sites where EarthCorps crews have been working on restoration projects. Our first visit was to Magnuson Park, a beautiful park situated on a former naval airfield in Seattle’s Sandpoint neighborhood with an impressive view of Mt. Rainier. The intentional communication style the crew […]
[Article] Wildfire Displacement in the United States: A Qualitative Synthesis of the Social [...]
March 16, 2026
Julie A. Gonzalez, Dana R. Fisher
CECE Director, Dana R. Fisher, and former CECE Post Doctoral Fellow, Julie A. González, recently published a paper about displacement after wildfires using the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires as a case. Abstract: Wildfire-driven displacement is an urgent and underexamined dimension of social vulnerability in the United States. This study synthesizes findings from a qualitative […]
CECE Whitepaper No. 4: Understanding Community Response to Disaster: Results from Three AmeriCorps [...]
February 11, 2026
Natalia Piland, Dana R. Fisher, Michael Culbert
AmeriCorps members and volunteers engage in community response to disaster across the United States. How do they explain the skills they use, the motivations that urge them to respond, and their experiences with disaster? Across the three programs that we visited, participants reported drawing from their prior life experiences, whether personal or professional,to increase their […]
[Article] Public Participation in Tropical Conservation and Environmental Management Research
January 20, 2026
Natalia Piland
CECE Postdoctoral Fellow Natalia C. Piland is lead author of a new paper in Biotropica titled, “Public participation in tropical conservation and environmental management research: Towards a locally grounded and reflexive practice.” This paper highlights research and practitioner experiences from the 18 co-authors and local histories, as well as results of bibliometric analyses from peer-reviewed literature, to […]
[Article] Drawing Systems of Stewardship to Guide Action and Reveal Critical Relationships of Care
January 20, 2026
Natalia Piland
CECE Postdoctoral Fellow Natalia C. Piland is lead author of a new paper in Earth Stewardship titled, “Drawing systems of stewardship to guide action and reveal critical relationships of care.” This paper is a presentation of a tool she, with her co-authors, developed while working at the U.S. Forest Service. The tool is meant to lower activation […]
[Article] After One Year of Trump, Is Anything Left of the American Climate Corps?
January 13, 2026
CECE’s work was recently featured in an article on Grist. The article investigates the fallout from the cancellation of the American Climate Corps. The feature showcases CECE’s recent report that looked into where jobs and communities were most impacted when the ACC was shut down and funding was cut. To read the whole article click […]
[Report] Visualizing the Loss of the American Climate Corps
November 17, 2025
CECE
How do we visualize the loss of the American Climate Corps? This report maps out the reach of the American Climate Corps to understand where jobs and communities were most impacted when the program was shut down and funding was cut. Read the full report below.
CECE Postdoctoral Fellow Speaks on Demography and Climate Disasters
October 16, 2025
Julie A. Gonzalez
Dr. Julie A. González, Environmental Justice Postdoctoral Fellow at CECE, was featured on the podcast The Demographer’s Diary, hosted by Dr. Coda Rayo-Garza, to discuss how demographic research shows the human dimensions of climate disasters. In the episode titled, “Demography and Climate Disasters,” Dr. González explained how population data such as age, housing, health, language, […]
CECE Postdoctoral Fellow Speaks on Extreme Heat and Health
October 6, 2025
CECE
Dr. Julie A. González, Environmental Justice Postdoctoral Fellow at CECE, was invited to join a live news forum with journalist Cesar Miguel Rondón, broadcast simultaneously on TVV Network and Éxitos 107.1 FM Miami, to discuss headlines about regions projected to face dangerous levels of extreme heat by 2050. In her remarks (timecode 1:14 to 1:30 […]