The GDRA is excited to announce the winner of its first Annual Graduate Student Paper Competition. A main goal of the GDRA is to support gender-based research and to celebrate up-and-coming scholars. The goal in developing the competition was to provide an opportunity for students to become part of a national forum for discussion, information-sharing and networking.  While student submissions could be theoretical arguments, case studies, literature reviews or analyses of research results, the required topic was gendered aspects of hazards and disasters in the United States. Papers were judged on originality, organization and knowledge of the topic by a panel of 5 judges. We want to take this opportunity to thank all students who shared their work with the committee;  it was an exciting mix of multiple disciplines and topics.  The GDRA also thanks its generous panel of judges.

2010 Recipient:  Chris Read, writing on "Engendered Vulnerability: Gender, Disaster, and Hurricane Katrina"

    Chris Read is a graduate student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in the school of City and Regional Planning where he is currently working with faculty members on the 2010 California State Hazard Mitigation Plan update. In 2009, Chris completed his MA in sociology at the University of Kansas (KU) where he wrote his graduate research paper on gender and disaster in the United States. Prior to attending KU, Chris attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he completed a bachelors degrees in philosophy and sociology.

ABSTRACT:   Disaster research about the developing world finds disparities in the ways that men and women experience natural disasters.  Though they often are not as pronounced, some scholars have suggested that similar disparities exist in highly developed nations.  I use Hurricane Katrina, a category five hurricane that hit the U.S. in 2005, as a case study to examine the gendered dimensions of a specific disaster.  I conduct a qualitative meta-analysis on fourteen health, economic, public management, and women’s policy reports about Hurricane Katrina.  I find that women and men were both vulnerable and resilient to the hurricane in different ways, including displacement and housing, employment and unemployment, mental health and substance abuse, physical health, and domestic abuse and sexual violence.  I conclude from the case of Hurricane Katrina that gender is an important component of disaster vulnerability in the U.S.

Congratulations, Chris!