Dr. Mathew E. Hauer is the Charles B. Nam Associate Professor of Sociology at Florida State University and Assistant Director of the Center for Demography and Population Health. His research lies at the intersection of demography, migration, population projections, and climate change, with particular expertise in modeling future population dynamics under climate stress.
His work on climate migration and population vulnerability has earned numerous prestigious accolades, including the 2024 Early Achievement Award from the Population Association of America and the 2023 Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He is a two-time recipient of the E. Walter Terrie Award for excellence in applied demography, and his dissertation on sea-level rise and human migration has accumulated over 1,400 citations since 2016.
Dr. Hauer’s research has significantly shaped our understanding of climate change’s demographic impacts, from sea-level rise displacement to temperature extremes and coastal flooding. His work has been featured in over 800 media outlets worldwide, including the New York Times, The Guardian, Time Magazine, National Geographic, and the Washington Post. Before joining FSU, he spent nearly a decade directing the Applied Demography Program at the University of Georgia.
Currently, Dr. Hauer leads several major research initiatives examining climate-induced population dynamics, aging demographics, and coastal vulnerability. His recent work explores how climate migration amplifies demographic change, the mortality risks of coastal flooding, and the intersection of climate hazards with population change.
Dissertation on sea-level rise and human migration:
PhD in Geography, 2016
University of Georgia
MS Demography, 2008
Florida State University
BS Sociology, 2007
Florida State University
Anthropogenic sea-level rise (SLR) is predicted to impact, and, in many cases, displace, a large proportion of the population via inundation and heightened SLR-related hazards. With the global coastal population projected to surpass one billion people this century, SLR might be among the most costly and permanent future consequences of climate change. In this Review, we synthesize the rapidly expanding knowledge of human mobility and migration responses to SLR, providing a coherent roadmap for future SLR research and associated policy. While it is often assumed that direct inundation forces a migration, we discuss how mobility responses are instead driven by a diversity of socioeconomic and demographic factors, which, in some cases, do not result in a migration response. We link SLR hazards with potential mechanisms of migration and the associated governmental or institutional policies that operate as obstacles or facilitators for that migration. Specific examples from the USA, Bangladesh and atoll island nations are used to contextualize these concepts. However, further research is needed on the fundamental mechanisms underlying SLR migration, tipping points, thresholds and feedbacks, risk perception and migration to fully understand migration responses to SLR.