ASU workshop trains educators, professionals from marginalized communities in disaster science
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As devastating as hurricanes can be to anyone caught in their paths, they strike marginalized communities even harder.
To address this issue, a fund named for a former Arizona State University professor, sociologist and interdisciplinary researcher — which marks its 10th anniversary this year — trains disaster science scholars and professionals from marginalized communities by providing networking, cohort activities, professional development and research workshops.
ASU’s Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security (EMHS) collaborated with the William Averette Anderson Fund to host 29 doctoral students and fellows on the Downtown Phoenix campus in mid-October at the fund’s 2024 fall workshop.
The website of the Bill Anderson Fund, as it is known, describes Anderson, who died in 2013, as “the nation's first African American sociologist of disaster” who also was a pioneer in hazards research and mitigation.
Anderson’s decades-long career was dedicated to assisting people adversely affected by disaster. In addition to his time teaching at ASU in the late 1960s and 1970s, Anderson held prestigious positions at the National Science Foundation, the World Bank and the National Academies.
Anderson was particularly interested in attracting people from marginalized communities to enter disaster-related research fields, said Melanie Gall, an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs and co-director of the EMHS center.
“Disasters, big or small, tend to accelerate and amplify pre-disaster trends and conditions,” Gall said.
“Not only do disasters disproportionately impact marginalized groups, but these groups frequently lack a seat at the table during the recovery phase and often do not benefit from federal programs. This places marginalized groups systematically at a disadvantage. The Bill Anderson Fund and its fellows, with their research and advocacy, focus on these inequities and give voice to the lived experience of marginalized groups, identify policy or programmatic chances and more.”
Since its establishment by his family in 2014, the Bill Anderson Fund has supported more than 100 students on their professional journeys, according to the fund’s executive director, Nnenia Campbell.
“Fund alumni who have entered the disaster workforce in academia, research, policy and practice are carrying on Anderson's work by blazing new trails and passing the baton to the next generation coming behind them,” Campbell said.
From 1974 to 1975, Anderson took time away from his ASU faculty position to become the first full-time director of the American Sociological Association’s Minority Fellowship Program. This program, which continues today, has supported more than 500 students of color pursuing doctoral degrees in sociology.
Graduates of the fund’s Minority Fellowship Program include several members of the ASU community, from established scholars such as Mary Romero, an American Sociological Association past president and professor emeritus of justice studies and social inquiry in the School of Social Transformation, to early-career scholars such as Rocío García, assistant professor of sociology in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics.
Alumni of the Bill Anderson Fund advance the disaster profession “by either educating the next generation of researchers or leveraging their skills and experience in the private or public sector,” said Gall, who said the fund “is literally and figuratively changing the face of the academic and practice domains in disaster research and emergency management.”
One of the fellows, Joseph Karanja, is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the ASU School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. His research specializes in heat vulnerability, especially among people experiencing homelessness, those living in mobile homes and outdoor workers.
Karanja said he was impressed by the workshop’s emphasis on community engagement and professional development and a field trip he and other attendees took to a local Indigenous community to learn how its officials prepare for emergency situations.
“The session on community engagement offered practical examples of how we can operationalize science to those who need it the most: the communities,” said Karanja, who plans to become a tenure-track professor specializing in social and environmental determinants of hazards. “Science is meaningful if it can test interventions and offer solutions to persistent challenges that communities experience.”
Karanja said the fund offers “a supporting community of peers, encouraging collaboration and promoting interdisciplinary approaches. In addition, it supports and promotes our work and research outputs while connecting fellows to collaborative activities and opportunities with nonprofits, local and federal governments, academic institutions and communities.”
The Bill Anderson Fund also partnered on similar workshops at the University of Colorado, Texas A&M University and the University of California, Irvine.
ASU will host its fifth fall workshop in fall 2026. Donations are being accepted here.
Gall said support for the 2024 workshop came from the following ASU entities: the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security, the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, the Del E. Webb Construction program, the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, the School of Public Affairs and the Graduate College.
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