Deserai Crow

Deserai Crow serves as Associate Professor and Associate Program Director for the PhD in Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver's School of Public Affairs. Her research focuses on narrative dynamics in policy processes, particularly during crises like wildfires, floods, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Crow's work centers on the Narrative Policy Framework, examining how stories shape policy learning, conflict resolution, and governance during disasters. She investigates environmental rulemaking, stakeholder engagement in crisis recovery, and the intersection of political communication with public health responses. Her research bridges political science, environmental policy, and disaster management through empirical analyses of real-world events including Colorado's extreme floods and pandemic responses.

Recent publications reveal consistent thematic trends: narrative power in policy conflicts, visual communication strategies for vaccine uptake, and cross-state comparative analyses of crisis governance. Her scholarship spans political science, public administration, and health policy, with methodological emphasis on narrative analysis, stakeholder engagement, and policy process theory. Key contributions include demonstrating how disaster narratives influence regulatory outcomes and identifying mechanisms for collaborative governance amid belief divergence.