11:52 a.m., Oct. 15, 2009----University of Delaware Ph.D. graduate Bethany Brown has been selected as one of the two inaugural winners of the Samuel H. Prince Award for a doctoral dissertation on a disaster topic and behavioral sciences.

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Brown's dissertation focused on how three domestic violence shelters navigated Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Despite shortcomings in facility space and funding, these shelters were able to create resources like social networks and local expertise to help people through the storms.

“When I first heard, I was honored to be selected, and thrilled for a topic on domestic violence to be recognized,” Brown said.

Brown developed her topic while taking a sociology of gender graduate seminar with Margaret Andersen, Edward F. and Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg Professor of Sociology. The class discussed gender implications of Hurricane Katrina and what would happen to women in domestic violence shelters of the facility was damaged.

Brown was then introduced to Tricia Wachtendorf, assistant professor of sociology and associate director of UD's Disaster Research Center, who invited her to assist on a Katrina-related project.

“During travels to New Orleans, I was able to make contacts in the domestic violence community and begin to lay the foundation of this project,” Brown said.

The International Research Committee on Disasters presents the award in recognition of notable accomplishments by disaster researchers in the social and behavioral sciences. The award is named after Samuel Prince, who wrote the first doctoral dissertation in sociology of disasters at Columbia University.

Brown is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Protection Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

Article by Erica Cohen