Elizabeth Olson

Elizabeth Olson is a Professor of Geography and the Environment and Global Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill). She holds leadership roles, including former department Chairperson at UNC-Chapel Hill and previous position at the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences. She co-founded the Caregiving Youth Research Collaborative and co-chairs the AAG Climate Action Task Force. Her research focuses on care ethics, youth geographies, critical disability studies, and climate change, emphasizing collaborative methodologies with practitioners and communities.

Her work has been funded by NSF, PCORI, ESRC-AHRC, EU Horizon, and others. She advocates for caregiving youth recognition and supports graduate students exploring non-normative care relationships, critical health geographies, and intersectional disability approaches. Her interdisciplinary projects include studies on caregiving in schools, climate adaptation through interspecies kinship, and participatory methods like the Versatile Everyday Emotion Mapping (VEEM) framework.

Recent research highlights include analyzing caregiving youth’s school absenteeism, EU-funded wellbeing projects, and climate action policy advocacy. Her work bridges theory and practice, aiming to inform social policies and grassroots initiatives.