Liz Morrell is a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She obtained her Master’s degree in Geography in 2011 from UNC Charlotte, and has worked throughout her tenure as a graduate student on various community-engaged research initiatives.
As a member of the Charlotte Action Research Project (CHARP) team at UNC Charlotte, Liz partnered with ten neighborhood associations throughout the Charlotte metropolitan area, including several communities that are home to large numbers of immigrants, refugees, and asylees. CHARP’s key goal is to partner directly with marginalized communities to build organizational capacity, and Liz has been active in the pursuit of that mission by applying for grants, assisting residents in event planning, and communicating key information from city officials to residents.
Her research focuses on neighborhood transitions, and her dissertation, currently in progress, is titled “Subprime Charlotte: Trajectories of Neighborhood Change in a Globalizing New South City.” Liz’s work focuses on the intersection of policy, capital, and discourse as they affect quality of life in a variety of neighborhood landscapes including inner-ring suburbs that have seen recent increases in immigrant and ethnic populations.
Liz’s other research interests include ethnic entrepreneurship and community engagement models in higher education.
