I am a listener and teller of stories—stories of disaster, health, and the ties that bind people to their environments. My work begins where floodwaters rise and lives are reshaped, most recently with the 2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods in South Africa. As a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and a Sir John Monash Scholar, I trace the stories of responders and survivors, listening closely to how they navigate the chaos and repair left in the wake of environmental rupture.
My path to anthropology has been shaped by over 15 years on the frontlines of emergencies, as an emergency nurse coordinating disaster responses, retrieving patients from remote locations by helicopter, and working alongside the International Committee of the Red Cross in conflict zones from Jordan to Ukraine. My story started with a mass casualty event in the Indo-Pacific that I responded to, which altered my trajectory, leading me to reflect deeply on the connections between health, crisis, and survival. That moment earned me the Winston Churchill Fellowship and eventually led me to anthropology.
Through arts-based methods and storytelling, my research explores how people make sense of disaster, not as isolated events but as moments that reveal the deeper connections between life, environment, and repair. My work is built from these voices, entangled with my own journey.
Sculpting stories: methods to unsettle knowledge production in disasters
Disaster Prevention and Management, November 2024
Healing Ruins, Emily Ragus with Photography by Alexandra Rose Howland
American Ethnologist 2024
The benefits of feminism for men in a climate-changing world
Women's Agenda, October 2021
This is how natural disasters impact men and women differently and why gender equality efforts must consider climate change
Women's Agenda, September 2021
Winston Churchill Fellowship, 2018
Pre-selected for Global Australian of the Year, 2023
Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies Seed Grant, 2024
Brocher Foundation Residency, Geneva, Switzerland, 2025
European representative for the General Sir John Monash Foundation Scholar Advisory Council, 2023/2024
Project coordinator for a surgical camp at LAMU Hospital in Jinja, Uganda, 2021 and 2022
Anthropology of Disasters (UvA Course ID: 7313T0102Y_B4+B5)
Anthropology of Urban Africa (UvA Course ID: 7312R0013Y)
Violent Intimacies (UvA Course ID: 7313T0110Y_B1+B2)
Visual Anthropology of Health: Winter School
Fordham University, Geneva, Switzerland
Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Bonn University, Bonn, Germany
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia
Rubbish Deaths: Creative Methodologies to Untangle Violence, funded by ACCS Seed Funding, 2024
European Conference of African Studies, Cologne, Germany, 2023
Community-Led Early Warning Systems: The Case Study of Quarry Road West, Northern European Emergency and Disaster Studies, Twente, Netherlands, 2023
Tracing Precarity: Arts-Based Research in Disasters, Visual Anthropology Conference, Toronto, Canada, 2023
American Anthropological Association, Toronto, Canada, 2023
Rubbish Deaths: Violent Entanglements in Disasters, European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), Barcelona, Spain, 2024
Scientific Storytelling, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2022
Social Science Switch, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2022
International Diploma of Humanitarian Assistance, Fordham University, New York, USA, 2019
Diploma of Emergency Nursing, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, 2006
Queensland Clinical Senate Podcast, 2021
