Orsola Torrisi

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I am a Talent Attraction Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M). Previously, I was an Assistant Professor of Social Demography at McGill University, where I remain affiliated as an Adjunct Professor. I am a member of UC3M's “Social Structure and Population” Research Group, the “Population and Society” (GEPS) Research Group, McGill's Centre for Population Dynamics and the LSE Population Group.

My research focuses on the demography of crises and violence. I am particularly interested in understanding changes in family dynamics in contexts affected by armed violence, crime and disasters, as well as the consequences of multiple crises for sexual and reproductive health. Within this broader research agenda, I also study how exposure to armed violence affects other forms of violence in private and public settings, including intimate partner violence and obstetric abuse. More recently, I have expanded my research to questions of measurement and vital registration, as well as the development of new approaches to collecting demographic data in data-scarce settings.

My work is interdisciplinary, combining theoretical perspectives from demography, sociology, economics, and development studies with demographic, causal inference, and spatial methods. My research focuses primarily on low- and middle-income settings.