![Patricia Ward](/sociology/files/2020/07/Photo-Patricia-Ward-Trish-Ward-scaled-e1595955868679-600x600.jpg)
PhD Alumnus
Trish’s research interests are in the areas of transnational labor, humanitarian aid and development, and the global refugee regime. Her current research focuses on labor practices in the humanitarian aid sector, particularly within the Middle East context. Trish received her PhD in Sociology from Boston University in 2020. Her dissertation, “How Humanitarian Relief ‘Works’: International Aid Organizations and Local Labor in Crisis Contexts” examined the reorganization of aid operations amidst a growing number of protracted displacement crises worldwide and its effects on national aid workers employed in the sector. Trish is a 2020-2021 postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, where she will begin working on her second project that focuses on humanitarian logistics as everyday labor practices in UN humanitarian hubs.