Frank Griggs

Assistant Professor in Residence

Political Science (Affiliated with Maritime Studies)

PhD, University of Connecticut

I teach a variety of Political Science courses at UConn’s Avery Point regional campus. My course offerings include introductory International Relations and Comparative Politics, Quantitative Analysis, and Global Environmental Politics.

My research is motivated by the premise that climate change will increasingly and profoundly affect humanity and the planet for generations. I study how displaced persons, people whose lives are disrupted by natural disaster types that are worsening because of climate change (e.g. floods, storms, wildfires, extreme atmospheric temperatures), influence conflict incidence (e.g. insurgency, protest, repression). Using a combination of conventional statistical methods (i.e. non-spatial) and Geographic Information System (GIS) software, I leverage event-based data with global coverage, that has been formatted at various units of analysis (country-year, country-month, or sub-national administrative units), to assess the climate-conflict relationship with considerable temporal and spatial detail.