Taylor Brown (he/him) is a PhD Candidate in Social Welfare and Critical Theory at UC Berkeley. He studies how welfare states mediate climate adaptation and inequality, theorizing ecosocial policy—the overlap of welfare and environmental states. His research bridges social science and the humanities, using econometrics, computational social science, and critical text analysis. He is a Research Associate and Adjunct Professor with Tulane University’s CEDR/DRLA, a Senior Data Science Fellow at the UC Berkeley Social Science Data Lab, involved in the Environmental Politics and Governance Mentoring Program, and founding CEO of the Center for Ecosocial Policy.
His dissertation, “When Helping Hurts: Growth, Adaptation, and a Critique of Ecowelfare,” pairs critical theory with empirical analysis to study how safety-net programs shape adaptation and economic growth. Using a multimethod design, he analyzes National Adaptation Plans worldwide; builds an ecodecommodification index to develop ecowelfare typologies; and tests ecowelfare–growth interactions in the United States with quasi-experimental models. The project shows when safety-net responses cushion climate risk and when they reproduce inequality, offering design principles for more just and sustainable policy.
Taylor holds certificates in Applied Data Science and in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (UC Berkeley), an MSW from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BSW from Harding University.
Ecosocial policy, climate adaptation, climate risk, political economy of climate change, comparative social policy, computational social science, critical theory
