Helen L. Wilson Burns

ABOUT ME

I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Studies and a graduate affiliate of the CU Population Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. As an environmental demographer, my research examines intersections of migration, population health, environmental change, and rurality using interdisciplinary methods.

My work spans geographic contexts and demographic inquires, from investigating women's migration and post-COVID well-being in Bangladesh to analyzing disaster impacts and rural health vulnerabilities in the United States. I am most interested in work that uses detailed data about people’s lives to understand and complicate large, complex demographic trends.

I contribute methodological expertise in research design, data integration, and advanced analysis to multidisciplinary, multi-university collaborations. I excel at synthesizing complex spatial-temporal data from diverse sources to address pressing social and environmental changes.

Originally from the mountains of rural Tennessee, I hold a BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University and an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder. Before graduate school, I worked for international development and non-profit organizations in Myanmar, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.

RESEARCH

Women's migration in Bangladesh

Overview: This study employs a novel typology to examine the changing patterns and determinants of women's migration in Bangladesh, revealing significant shifts in mobility trends over time.

Impact: The research identifies substantial increases across cohorts in women's economic and educational migration, with distinct mechanisms from family-based migration. These findings provide important insights into how migration flows mature and gender-specific migrant networks strengthen over time.

Work: I led a research team in Bangladesh, developing and implementing a mixed-methods approach to build on existing survey data from the Bangladesh Environment and Migration Survey with in-depth qualitative interviews. This involved migrant tracking, qualitative coding, and development of a classification system for migration types.

Status: First-authored manuscript, “Diversity and Change in Women’s Migration in Bangladesh” is under review at Demography.

Collaborators: Amanda Carrico, Katharine Donato, Bishawjit Mallick

Extreme environmental events and rural elderly health

Overview: This project examines climate- and disaster-related health impacts on rural elderly populations, a demographic often underrepresented in environmental vulnerability studies.

Impact: By comparing mortality and health outcomes between rural and urban elderly populations, this research contributes evidence for developing protective and adaptive policies tailored to rural contexts. The study examines how extreme environmental events affect health outcomes in an aging rural America.

Work: I obtained Special Sworn Status clearance through the U.S. Census Bureau to access restricted federal data, have led the integration of public and restricted National Health Interview Survey data with disaster and climate data from FEMA and SHELDUS.

Status: Ongoing project within the Center for Aging, Climate, & Health with NIH funding.

Collaborators: Lori Hunter, Catherine Talbot, Dylan Connor, Taylor Jaworski

Climate migration in Mexico

Overview: This research investigates how drought-related climate shocks influence international and internal migration flows in Mexico, examining variation across local contexts, gender, and life course stages.

Impact: Our findings indicate substantial heterogeneity in climate-migration associations, ranging from moderately positive to moderately negative. The study shows that social and economic factors shape whether and how climate shocks influence migration, with differential and context-dependent patterns by gender and age that have implications for understanding population mobility in response to climate change.

Work: I led integration of sociodemographic data from Mexican census and government sources with climate data and have led and collaborated on cluster and difference-in-difference analyses.

Status: First-authored manuscript in preparation.

Collaborators: Fernando Riosmena, Johannes Uhl, Stefan Leyk

Return migration and remittances during COVID-19 in Bangladesh

Overview: This study examines how COVID-19 lockdowns disrupted migration, remittances, and livelihoods in Bangladesh, with potential consequences for family well-being and development gains.

Impact: Our findings indicate enduring negative impacts from the pandemic, particularly on mental health and food security, with notable gender differences. The research shows that remittances are strongly associated with adult food security, while lockdown-related livelihood disruptions correlate with psychological distress, reduced wealth, and increased child food insecurity.

Work: I collaborated on the research design and field training and led the development of the digital survey instrument of a new wave of the Bangladesh Environment and Migration Survey focused on return migration in Southeast Bangladesh.

Status: First-authored manuscript is conditionally accepted at Demographic Research.

Collaborators: Amanda Carrico, Katharine Donato

The Changing Demography of Disaster Impact in the US

Overview: This project examines how the burden of natural hazards and disasters on the U.S. population has shifted over the past decade, with attention to demographic disparities in impact.

Impact: Within the larger project, my research analyzes patterns of mobility and exposure across different sociodemographic groups to understand how migration relates to demographic composition and social vulnerability in disaster-affected areas. The findings contribute to knowledge about environmental exposure and population movement in the context of increasing disaster frequency.

Work: I collaborated on code development to integrate the SHELDUS natural hazard loss database with public American Community Survey microdata, conducting analyses on supercomputing infrastructure to identify patterns of hazard exposure across population segments.

Status: First-author manuscript in preparation "Movers, Stayers, and Inequitable Exposure to Extreme Events Across the U.S.”

Collaborators: Deborah Balk, Dylan Connor, Jenna Tipaldo, Lori Hunter, Melanie Gall

EXPERTISE

Advanced Quantitative Analysis

Microdata processing and analysis
Longitudinal and time-series analysis; survival analysis and event history modeling
Multilevel modeling
Complex survey design
Statistical software: Advanced in Stata, highly proficient in R

Research Design & Implementation

Survey development, field testing, enumerator training, and implementation
Mixed-methods research design
Cross-cultural data collection and collaboration
Advanced programming skills in KoboToolbox, XLSForm for digital survey instruments

Social-Environmental Data Integration

Merging climate and disaster data with demographic data across scales
Spatial-temporal analysis of population-environment interactions
Harmonization of multi-source environmental and social datasets
Development of metrics for environmental exposure
Use of restricted data from NCHS and U.S. Census Bureau in a Federal Statistical Research Data Center

TEACHING INTERESTS

My teaching philosophy centers on developing critical thinking through interdisciplinary data literacy and quantitative reasoning.

I am interested in teaching courses focused on:

Research design in the social and environmental sciences
Population and environment
Statistics and data literacy as tools for understanding complex social-environmental phenomena
Migration dynamics and theory
Demographic concepts and methodology

CV & CONTACT

H Wilson Burns CV, PUBLIC Apr 2025.pdf

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