Laura Bullon-Cassis

Chercheuse post-doctorale, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
Laura Bullon-Cassis is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. She is interested in how we can organise and prepare for the great challenges of our time -- including climate change and AI -- with a focus on the role of language and meaning in transforming our societies.

Laura received her Ph.D. (with Distinction) from the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University in 2022. Her dissertation explored the sociocultural category of 'youth' in UN climate summitry, with a particular focus on how framings of youth and the politics of attention impact the lived experiences of young people. As part of her fieldwork, she conducted three years of participant observation with youth advocates and activists in United Nations climate summits in New York, Madrid and Glasgow. Her current research projects look at, respectively, democratic innovations as a response to youth demands, and the role of Artificial Intelligence in democracy.

Laura has taught interdisciplinary courses on topics related to sustainability, youth, and media studies at Pratt Institute and New York University. As a Team Leader and Writer for the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s (IISD) Reporting Services, Laura regularly attends UN environmental conferences worldwide. She sat on the Board of the Children and Youth Interest Group of the American Anthropological Association and served as Assistant Editor for the leading academic journal Public Culture, co-hosted by Columbia University and New York University's Institute for Public Knowledge. In 2023, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University and a Research Affiliate with the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics (IDDP) at George Washington University.

Prior to her graduate studies, Laura worked for the United Nations in Tokyo, Geneva, New York City, and Haiti. She has held roles, among others, at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). She has published her work in academic and media outlets, including the Journal of Youth Studies, Global Policy Journal, NEOS, and OpenDemocracy.

Laura holds an MSc in Global Politics and a BSc in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).