Brian Mayer

Faculty Fellow 2014-2016

Brian Mayer received his Ph.D. in sociology from Brown University in 2006 and is an associate professor of sociology in the College of Social and Behavioral Science and an affiliate faculty member in the Institute of the Environment.

Brian Mayer researches the relationships between societies and the environment and how each shapes the other. His work focuses on the socioeconomic production of health and disease and how environmental health issues are contested by scientists, regulators, and citizens. His projects tend to focus on the environmental and public health impacts of technological disasters and the individual and community efforts at recovery. In addition, Mayer is interested in social stratification and inequality, especially the distribution of environmental inequalities in our society.

Mayer’s recent research projects include a study, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, to examine the long-term psychosocial and community health impacts of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico; a collaborative project with the University of Maryland, funded by the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, to examine recovery from Hurricane Sandy; an investigation of the use of community-based science in social movement organizations; and a project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to explore the interactions of labor and environmental social movement organizations in the United States.

Through his qualitative research methodology, Mayer often makes use of community-based participatory research to engage local stakeholders in the research process and cooperatively develop policy solutions to local problems.