Kerilyn Schewel

Kerilyn Schewel is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research examines the root causes of human migration and immobility, with an emphasis on the themes of gender, youth, education, rural development, and climate change. She has carried out extensive qualitative and mixed-methods fieldwork in Ethiopia. Her first book, Moved by Modernity: How Development Shapes Migration in Rural Ethiopia, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. 

Kerilyn currently teaches courses on sociological perspectives, social interaction, and contemporary immigration into the United States. She leads the the Resilient Communities Built on Farmer Flourishing project through a joint collaboration with the Duke Center for International Development, and is co-editing a volume Development in Transition: Rethinking Rural Futures with Pivot Press. She continues to collaborate with and serve as co-director of the Duke Program on Climate, Resilience and Mobility. 

Kerilyn holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Amsterdam (2019), an MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford (2014), and a BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia (2009). She has held visiting researcher positions at the University of Addis Ababa and Princeton University.