Erica Bower
Erica Bower is a PhD Candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER). She is broadly interested in how climate change interacts with people's mobility decisions, and how policy might better protect people's rights on the move. Her dissertation takes a global comparative approach to study the outcomes and governance of a unique type of collective climate adaptation: the planned relocation of entire communities to new sites out of harm's way.
Erica's two passions for the environment and human rights intertwined when she interviewed communities seeking to relocate in the Nepali Himalayas during fieldwork in 2013. Since discovering climate migration as a natural entanglement of her interests, she earned a Masters in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and worked for NGOs and International Organizations –including two years as a Climate Displacement Policy specialist at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Throughout these different roles, a common thread for Erica was understanding and advocating for human-centered practical and policy solutions for people on the move in climate contexts.
“I’ll never forget what one woman in Nepal told me. ‘I have two choices: I can stay here in the land of my ancestors and die, or I can move and start a new life.’ And that was galvanizing.”
Outside of her research, Erica is an ashtanga yogi, loves vegetarian and vegan cooking, and is currently training for her first ultra-marathon.
Erica Bower and colleagues discuss how events like drought and wildfire influence socioeconomic factors and might drive people to cross international border or relocate domestically.
