Academy Fellow

Celia McMichael is a human geographer and Professor and Head of School in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Her research sits at the intersection of human migration and mobility, population health, and environmental change. It has a particular focus on how communities experience and adapt to climate-related risks, and the ways in which adaptation can promote social justice.

Her current empirical work centres on climate change and human mobility, including in the Pacific Islands. Working closely with local researchers and communities in Fiji, she has examined planned relocation, a policy response in which people, assets and infrastructure are moved to safer ground as sea-level rise, flooding and coastal erosion intensify. She has undertaken collaborative fieldwork in many low-lying coastal communities, including long-term engagement with communities that have relocated inland, documenting residents’ changing experiences over time of climatic and environmental risk, governance and wellbeing. Her work emphasises that climate-related mobility is shaped also by social vulnerability, economic conditions, political context, and migration policy settings. She challenges alarmist narratives of climate “refugees” arguing that adaptation policy must treat human mobility as a potential adaptive strategy, supported by rights-based frameworks.

Celia has also made sustained contributions to research on the health of refugees, advancing understanding of the social determinants of refugee health and wellbeing beyond the early stages of resettlement. This research seeks to explain the role that family networks, belonging, discrimination and social inclusion, education, and employment have on refugee health. Celia has conducted research on resettlement outcomes among recently-arrived women with refugee backgrounds, refugee youth and humanitarian entrants resettling in regional Australia.

Celia’s research is enabled through close engagement with relevant partner organisations, institutions, community members, and co-researchers. She is committed to research that is attentive to local knowledge, and that informs policy, practice and international frameworks supporting people on the move.

Celia has applied international development experience, including in Angola, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, having worked with agencies including the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and United Nations agencies. She contributes to the annual report produced by the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, an international, multidisciplinary collaboration that tracks climate-related health indicators. She is a Lead Author of the chapter on poverty, livelihoods, migration and fragility in the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report.

Professor, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne

Head of School, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne

IPCC Lead Author (Assessment Report 7)

1. McMichael, C. (2023). Climatic and environmental change, migration, and health. Annual review of public health, 44(1), 171-191.

2. McMichael, C., Dasgupta, S., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., & Kelman, I. (2020). A review of estimating population exposure to sea-level rise and the relevance for migration. Environmental Research Letters, 15(12), 123005.

3. McMichael, C., Katonivualiku, M., & Powell, T. (2019). Planned relocation and everyday agency in low‐lying coastal villages in Fiji. The Geographical Journal, 185(3), 325-337.

4. McMichael, C., Barnett, J., & McMichael, A. J. (2012). An ill wind? Climate change, migration, and health. Environmental health perspectives, 120(5), 646.

5. McMichael, C., & Manderson, L. (2004). Somali women and well-being: Social networks and social capital among immigrant women in Australia. Human organization, 63(1), 88-99