Staff and Center Associates

Dr. Kristen R. Yount
Associate Professor and Coordinator of Sociology
Northern Kentucky University
E-mail: YountK@nku.edu

Dr. Kristen Yount, PhD (Sociology) is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Coordinator of the Sociology Program, and Coordinator of the university–wide Sustainable Future Program at Northern Kentucky University. She previously has held both academic and community organization management positions.

A specialist in risk perception, Dr. Yount has applied her expertise to brownfields risk control, especially in the arena of environmental insurance. Her work draws primarily on her ethnographic research skills. She has conducted in–depth interviews with individuals involved in the management of environmental risks, including those in the lending community, the insurance industry, and public officials engaged in the redevelopment of brownfields. Her current EPA-supported projects include Expediting the Environmental Insurance Purchasing Process, and Accelerating Brownfields Cleanup and Redevelopment with Innovative Uses of Environmental Insurance.

Dr. Yount’s federal research/policy analysis productivity is evidenced by regular presentations at the annual Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields Conference as well as at EPA–convened consultations and meetings of organizations such as the Council for Urban Economic Development and the International City/County Management Association.

Among her written products for federal agencies are:

Models of Government-Led Brownfield Insurance Programs (With P. Meyer.) (US EPA, 2002).

Environmental Insurance and Public Sector Brownfield Programs: Factors Affecting Pursuit of Insurance as a Redevelopment Tool. (With P. Meyer.) (US EPA, 2000).

Environmental Insurance Products Available for Brownfields Redevelopment, 1999 (US EPA, 2000).

Project Scale and Private Sector Environmental Decision–Making: Factors Affecting Investments in Small– and Large–Scale Brownfield Projects. (With P. Meyer.) (Urban Ecosystems 3:351–366, 1999).

The Effects of Environmental Hazards and Regulation of Urban Redevelopment (With C. Walker, P. Meyer, C. Bartsch, E. Collaton, P. Boxall.) (US Department of Housing and Urban Development and US EPA, 1998).

Financing Small-Scale Urban Redevelopment Projects: A Sourcebook for Borrowers Reusing Environmentally Suspect Sites (With P. Meyer.) (US EPA, 1997).

The Organizational Contexts of Decisions to Invest in Environmentally Risky Urban Properties. (Journal of Economic Issues 31:367–373, 1997).

Contaminated Land: Reclamation, Redevelopment and Reuse in the United States and the European Union (With P. Meyer and R. Williams.) (Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar, 1995).

Bankers, Developers, and New Investment in Brownfield Sites: Environmental Concerns and the Social Psychology of Risk. (With P. Meyer.) (Economic Development Quarterly 8:352–358, 1994).