Mia Karisa Dawson
About Mia Karisa's Work
Dr. Mia Karisa Dawson (she/they) is an urban human geographer and community organizer. As a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles in History and African American Studies, she studies racial relationships of policing, property, and protest that shape U.S. cities. Mia works to develop people-centric approaches to housing and violence prevention in partnership with public health organizations including the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and Decarcerate Sacramento. With a background in environmental justice, she has contributed to research and policy interventions concerning racial disparities in air and water quality in California.
Mia’s work has been published in journals including ‘Society and Space,’ ‘Frontiers in Public Health,’ and ‘Water Alternatives’. Her work has been supported by organizations including the Mellon Research Initiative on Racial Capitalism, the Society of Women Geographers, the American Association of Geographers, the Mellon Public Scholars Program, the University of Georgia Community Mapping Lab, and the UC Santa Cruz Visualizing Abolition program. In all of her scholarship and organizing, Mia is indebted to a legacy of Black social movement committed to political education and abolition.
