Laura Brisbane

Laura Brisbane received her PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California, focusing on the politics of social welfare provision in the United States. Prior to her PhD, Laura was a field organizer with Voter Choice Massachusetts and a Democracy Research Fellow at the Small Planet Institute.

Laura’s research analyzes the psychology of scarcity in relation to distributive ethics, political attitudes, and policy outcomes. She became curious about the psychology of scarcity, in part, due to her undergraduate focus on human rights. Over time, she developed a growing appreciation for the contradiction between a rights-based framework of social welfare provision, on the one hand, and the culture of individualism, on the other, in which scarcity is naturalized as an inevitable source of competition and hierarchy. This contradiction motivated her interest in the social construction of scarcity and its impact on inequality within the context of American discourse, policy, and public opinion.

Laura’s latest work focuses on the Abundance Agenda in California public policy. She’s had the honor of working with the Possibility Lab’s Abundance Policy Research Consortium, whose deep expertise on a wide range of California policy issues has been incredibly expansive. She’s excited to now work with the Possibility Lab as a Postdoctoral Scholar.

In her free time, Laura loves being in nature, playing guitar, and writing music. She lives in San Francisco with her partner and her dog.