Department of Geography

Elizabeth Cullen Dunn recently won a President’s International Research Award (PIRA) for a project on “Infrastructures of Refugee Arrival.” She and Rene Kreichauf (Free University of Berlin) conducted research on new forms of housing for refugees in the city of Berlin, where tempo-homes, container villages, and modular apartment complexes or dorms have all become part of the housing mix for new immigrants seeking asylum. They are interested in how the sites for these new kinds of housing are chosen, and how they affect Berlin’s notoriously tight housing market, which has a vacancy rate below 1%. They are also tracking how effective these new kinds of supportive housing are at integrating refugees into the labor market and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Dunn was also recently named Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Fellow.   She will be one of 16 distinguished faculty visiting campuses across the US. Dunn will present public lectures on refugees, asylum seekers, and the immigration system in the US and Europe.