BIO

Elaine Enarson
Elaine Enarson is an independent scholar currently teaching sociology and women’s studies in the Denver, Colorado area. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1981 and later directed the women’s studies program at the University of Nevada Reno as well as the Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence. Her research and publications have examined women’s work in disasters and their housing and evacuation experiences, the uses of feminist theory for disaster sociology, disaster prevention and sustainable development, women’s cultural responses to disaster, violence against women in disaster contexts, grassroots women’s efforts to mitigate natural hazards, and international trends in the gender and disaster literature. She has consulted on these issues with the International Labour Organization, the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, and ISDR. Recently, she served as the lead course developer for a new FEMA course on social vulnerability, and was the principal investigator of an action research project on vulnerability with women’s groups in the Caribbean. Dr. Enarson is co-convener and planner of the August 2004 workshop in Honolulu on Gender Equality and Disaster Risk Reduction.