Katherine J. Curtis

Dr. Katherine J. Curtis is a Professor of Community & Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, serving as Director of the Center for Demography & Ecology (CDE) and previously as its Associate Director. She holds the Buttel-Sewell endowed professorship. Her research focuses on demography, spatial analysis, and socio-economic inequality, with emphases on population-environment interactions, racial disparities, and advanced spatial statistical methods.

Her current research is funded by NICHD, NSF, NIA, and USDA, addressing topics such as migration responses to environmental events, rural livelihoods, and historical racial disparities. She teaches graduate-level courses like Spatial Data Analysis (C&E Soc 977) and leads the Demography Seminar (Soc/Econ 997). Her work bridges theoretical frameworks with applied spatial methodologies to understand inequality's impacts on population wellbeing.

Key affiliations include the Department of Community & Environmental Sociology and the CDE. Grants include studies on migration patterns, environmental health impacts, and spatial connectedness in rural areas.