J. Carlee Purdum is a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. She received her PhD in Sociology from Louisiana State University in December 2019. Her academic interests focus on the theoretical and observed relationship between the criminal justice system (policing, criminalization, punishment, and incarceration) and environmental hazards and disasters, a growing area of inquiry. Her work is grounded in environmental and climate justice as the prison industrial complex facilitates exposure to hazards and undermines the individual and collective resilience of those already marginalized and oppressed, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, to disaster recovery. Her community research partners include the Texas Prisons Community Advocates (TPCA) and the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons with whom she has partnered with to study the impacts of extreme temperatures and COVID19 to incarcerated persons in Texas without access to air-conditioning.
Dr. Purdum is the leader of the CONVERGE Covid19 in Prisons Network facilitating international research on the impacts of COVID19 on incarcerated persons as well as how the ongoing pandemic has increased the vulnerability of incarcerated person to the impacts of other hazards (wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, power failures, toxic releases). She is also working on projects with the HRRC examining civilian rescue organizations as well as long term recovery after disasters. Other projects have examined public health on the gulf coast after the BP oil spill of 2010, social media in disasters, disaster risk perception, and hurricane evacuation behavior. Her research interests include: Social Vulnerability and Disaster, Environmental and Climate Justice, Environmental Racism, Punishment, Prisons, and Incarceration, Incarcerated Workers, Health, Human Rights, and Research Methods. |