About Me

I am a Sociology PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to attending graduate school, I received my B.S. in Statistics from Iowa State Univeristy. I am primarily interested in demographic responses to climate change and innovative uses of data.

Overview

My research interests can be broadly described as demographic responses to climate change. I am motivated to understand how populations respond to environmental change. My work has addressed this question through three types of responses - migration, fertility, and economic. Relatedly, I also enjoy thinking about how to meaningfully measure environmental exposures and quantifying the population implications of climate change. In my work, I pull from a variety of demographic and environmental data sources and enjoy finding useful ways to integrate them together. Specifically, I have worked with datasets such as the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), IRS County-to-County Migration, County Business Patterns, CHIRPS, tropical cyclone data (Done, 2019), and the US Forest Service Wildfire Occurance Data (Short, 2022)

Published Work

Ronnkvist, S.R., Thiede, B.C., Barber, E. (2023). Child Fostering in a Changing Climate: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa. Population and Environment. 45(28). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-023-00435-2

Thiede, B. C., Ronnkvist, S. , Armao, A., & Burka, K. (2022). Climate anomalies and birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Climatic Change, 171(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03273-z

Manuscripts in Progress

Curtis, K.J., Parker, D., Fussell, E., DeWaard, J., Ronnkvist, S. Mobile Capital, Natural Assets, and Differential Environmental Migration in the U.S. Gulf Coast.

[Equal Authorship] Ronnkvist, S., Venechuk, G. Fire Away! Understanding the Effect of Wildfires on Colorado's Environmentally Dependent Job Market (2001-2021).

Ronnkvist, S., Curtis, K.C. Previous Hurricane Exposure and Migration in the Gulf Coast (1990 to 2011).