Julia Davis – McNichols Foundation Scholar
1st Year Scholar, PhD candidate

Civil & Environmental Engineering
University of Virginia

Research:
As climate change causes flooding to become more frequent and intense, communities across the U.S. are facing difficult and complex decisions about whether and when to relocate. My current research investigates how people make these decisions in the face of uncertainty—using both historical flood data and people's personal risk perceptions—to develop a tool that supports fair and informed planning for climate-driven relocation.

How Will Your Research Benefit Society?
My research helps communities, planners, and policymakers better understand how and when people decide to move away from areas at risk of flooding. By improving how we predict and support relocation decisions, this model can lead to more equitable and proactive climate adaptation strategies, ensuring that the most flood-vulnerable populations aren't left behind as environmental risks increase.

How will an ARCS Award Benefit Your Research?
My research involves collecting and working with multiple types of environmental datasets to build relocation decision models. Specifically, my work includes developing and distributing surveys to better understand how people perceive flood risk and what factors influence their decisions to relocate—an essential but resource-intensive component of the project. Designing effective surveys, reaching diverse and representative populations, and offering incentives to ensure strong response rates all require significant funding. An ARCS award would help offset these costs, as well as expenses related to data acquisition and travel to present findings at conferences. This support would allow me to focus my time on building a robust model that can guide more equitable climate adaptation strategies.

Career objectives:
My goal is to become a public servant working at the intersection of climate policy, environmental justice, and community resilience. I want to use my system-based research approach to inform sustainable policy- and decision-making about how communities adapt to climate uncertainty. Whether through a government agency or a policy-focused organization, I hope to contribute to public systems that focus on the needs of flood-risk populations and ensure climate adaptation efforts are fair and transparent.