Lisa Stites

Lisa Stites is a first-year graduate student working towards her Master of Science in Data Analytics at Drew University. She received her Bachelor of Arts with honors in Business Studies from Drew University, where she majored in business with a minor in statistics. She is a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon (ODE), the International Honor Society in Economics, and Phi Beta Kappa, a prestigious academic honor society. During her senior year at Drew University, Lisa wrote and successfully defended an honors thesis titled, “California’s Wildfire Problem: The Neglected Role of Class and Housing”. Her research examined the socioeconomic class breakdown of the wildland-urban interface (or WUI), using income as a proxy for class, and how California’s affordable housing crisis is pushing low- and middle-income households to areas vulnerable to wildfire. Lisa hopes to become an intelligence analyst in either industry or government. She is also interested in continuing research on how socioeconomic status and the environment interact with each other.