Elizabeth Holzer

Director of Undergraduate Programs, Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

Associate Professor, Sociology & Human Rights

Elizabeth Holzer is an associate professor of sociology and human rights at the University of Connecticut. In her research, she seeks to foster a fuller and more humane understanding of how people engage with politics in situations of violence and instability. Her recent book, The Concerned Women of Buduburam, documented the resurgence of everyday politics in a refugee camp and received the 2016 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award from the American Sociological Association Political Sociology Section, the 2016 Outstanding Book Award from the ASA Peace, War and Social Conflict Section, and the 2016 Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Award from the ASA Human Rights Section. In 2016, she launched a collaboration with engineers at the University of Connecticut, the Ethiopian Institute for Water Resources and other institutions to explore the political institutional constraints on international science and technology development. The project, which promotes a people-centered approach to the water-food-energy nexus, was awarded a $4.3M grant through the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships in International Research and Education.