Rate My Professor Sonya Glavac

Dr. Sonya Glavac serves as a Lecturer and Course Coordinator in the Department of Geography and Planning within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of New England, part of the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education. She earned her B.A. (Hons) and M.A. from the University of Queensland and her PhD from the University of Arizona. Her academic career at UNE includes teaching and research in population and urban geography, with coordination of units such as Urban Living (GEPL316), Population, Health and Environment (GEPL321/GEPL521), Major Research Project (HASS512), and Dissertation (HASS518). Glavac's supervision areas focus on population and urban geography, particularly international, seasonal, and intra-urban migration as well as population forecasting.

Glavac's research specializations center on migration patterns, population dynamics, land-use change, and disaster resilience. Her work examines the impacts of seasonal migration on lakeshore communities in the Ozarks, USA; attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy among U.S. citizens and activists in groups like the Minuteman Project and Desert Samaritans; and social differences in neighborliness between Home Owners Association-managed neighborhoods and traditional voluntary association-based areas in Phoenix, Arizona. More recently, she has contributed to assessments of disaster resilience in Australia, including the development of the Australian Natural Disaster Resilience Index and studies on local government capacity for land-use planning amid natural hazards. Key publications include her co-editorship of the Australasian Journal of Regional Studies (2013, Vol. 19, No. 1); 'Privatised development and the quality of urban life' in Urban Design and Planning (2012); 'Minutemen and Desert Samaritans: Mapping the Attitudes of Activists on the United States' Immigration Front Lines' in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2010); 'Disaster resilience in Australia: A geographic assessment using an index of coping and adaptive capacity' (2021); and 'Local Government Capacity and Land Use Planning for Natural Hazards: A Comparative Evaluation of Australian Local Government Areas' (2022). Her research has accumulated 665 citations, reflecting influence in demography, migration studies, and resilience planning.