Heather Champeau

IBS Associations

Graduate Student, Environment and Society Program

Graduate Research Assistant, Natural Hazards Center

Brief Biography

Heather Champeau is a graduate research assistant at the Natural Hazards Center in the Institute of Behavioral Sciences and a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work supports the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) CONVERGE facility where she is the primary data analyst for the Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) network.

Champeau’s background includes a decade of program evaluation and implementation, as well as two years of serving as the population estimates demographer for the State of Colorado. More recently, she served as a graduate mentor in the 2021 NHERI National Science Foundation-Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) program. She is also co-editor of an upcoming special issue on longitudinal disaster research for the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters.

Champeau earned her M.A. in sociology from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2010, where she focused on perceptions related to emerging environmental technologies. Currently, she studies the intersection of demography and disasters. Her work is especially focused on investigating the characteristics that define the workforce of social science hazards and disaster researchers.

Select Recent Work

• 2021. Peek, L. Mathews, M. Wu, H. Austin, J. Champeau, H. “2019 Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Network,” in Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Network Data, Survey Instrument, and Annual Census. DesignSafe-CI. DOI
• 2021. Champeau, H. Jessica A. Peek, L. "What Disasters do Social Scientists Study? Social Science Extreme Events Research Network" 46th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop. Link
• 2020. Champeau, H. "Unhoused During Stay-at-Home: A Collision of Covid-19 and Denver Policies." StoryMap Link. * Recognized by the Center for Humanities and the Arts as a Top 10 Project.
• 2020. Peek, L. Wu, H. Mathews, M. Champeau, H. Austin, J. "2018 SSEER Census." in Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Network Data, Survey Instrument, and Annual Census. DesignSafe-CI. DOI
• 2020. Peek, L. Champeau, H. Austin, J. Mathews, M. Wu, H. "What Methods Do Social Scientists Use to Study Disasters? An Analysis of the Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Network." American Behavioral Scientist 64(8): 1066-1094 DOI