Amy Spring
Associate Professor, Sociology
Georgia State University
CSDE Research Areas:
- Demographic Measurements and Methods
- Health of People and Populations
- Migration and Settlement
- Wellbeing of Families and Households
Dr. Spring is a demographer and urban sociologist whose research centers on families, communities, neighborhoods, and the environment. She joined the GSU Sociology Department in 2015 after completing her Ph.D. from the University of Washington and a research fellowship at UW’s Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.
She is particularly interested in studying residential mobility and internal migration within the context of family networks. She is also interested in the geography of family networks and in family support systems over the life course. Her findings show that family networks are very influential in determining who moves and explaining racial/ethnic disparities in residential mobility. Further, she finds that familial locations play a key role in residential mobility following divorce, health problems, and other adverse life events. Her research also explores residential mobility and neighborhood context among older adults, multiracial individuals, and same-sex households, highlighting how residential experiences intersect with social statuses and identities. In current projects, she is investigating the geography of family networks for older adults with disabilities, and the influence of family locations on migration following climate-induced disasters. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Spring is Co-Director of the Center for Neighborhoods & Communities and a faculty affiliate in the Urban Studies Institute and the Gerontology Institute at Georgia State University. She also serves on the editorial boards of City & Community, Demography, and Spatial Demography. Her teaching interests include urban sociology, environmental sociology, sociology of neighborhoods, statistics, and research methods.