Rachel LawsonSocial Science Technician

Biography

Rachel combines qualitative and quantitative geography/GIScience to understand how we interact with our changing environments. Rachel’s research focuses include human mobility, exposure to hazards, disaster risk reduction and recovery, crisis communication and big data analysis. Rachel’s previously worked on research covering long term recovery following the 1984 Southland floods, crisis communication during the Whakaari / White Island eruption & COVID-19 pandemic and as outreach coordinator for Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland (DEVORA). And completed a dissertation exploring the impacts on human mobility and exposure to air pollution/smoke following the 2019 NZICC Skycity fire, and a masters thesis using big mobile phone data to understand human mobility in Auckland during COVID-19 alert level four lockdowns.