News and Updates from The Fellows and Mentors
Since
we met in Broomfield, Colorado, in July of 2009, the fellows and their
mentors have been very active in a wide range of activities. Here's an
ongoing summary of their accomplishments
Tim Collins -- November 23, 2009
Dr. Collins has already submitted a grant proposal for his research. He also had
I had four sole- or first-author peer-reviewed articles published in
2009 (in Applied Geography, Environmental Management, Geoforum, and
Society and Natural Resources). These are all hazards/disasters
related. Additionally, in collaboration with physical scientists, Dr.
Collins co-authored two research briefs on the 2006 flood disaster in
El Paso-Ciudad Juárez (one published in Urban Climate News and
one forthcoming in Southwest Hydrology). Two other peer-reviewed
articles have been accepted with Antipode (sole-author) and Social
Forces (second-author) and are forthcoming (in 2010). A second-author
manuscript has been accepted pending minor revisions with Environment
and Planning A. Dr. Collins was also involved in preparing and
submitting two manuscripts to journals following the Broomfield
meeting; one is in revision and the other is in review Finally, Dr.
Collins is busy preparing two other hazards/disasters related
manuscripts for submission in early 2010.
Scott Miles -- November 24, 2009
Dr. Miles taught two courses in the fall quarter.: hazard mitigation
planning and emergency management. In addition, his first NSF grant
project started October 1st. The project team has met to create a
4-year workplan and has done a significant amount of work on the first
phase of work -- developing a conceptual model of infrastructure
interdependence, infrastructure restoration, and local economic
performance and recovery.
Fall
was also the first quarter of Dr. Miles' directorship of Western
Washington University's Resilience Institute. The Institute has
established two memorandums of understanding to do research on
Washington State disaster planning and policy. One MOU is with
Snohomish County, evaluating their public awareness campaign for
emergency preparedness. The other MOU is with Washington State
Emergency Management Division to conduct a national-scale policy
analysis on seismic mitigation policies to identify policy needs for
Washington State. The Resilience Institute also recently completed a
disaster risk reduction framework for precarious settlement in
Guatemala City in cooperation with Oxfam GB. In his new role on the
Washington State Seismic Safety Commission, Dr. Miles has been
assisting in facilitating Washington State's seismic resilience
planning.
Dr. Miles also had a paper on
his recovery model, ResilUS, accepted by CAGIS (Journal of Cartography
and Geographic Information Systems), and is continuing work on a
NOAA-funded project for incorporating ecological capital in the ResilUS
model.
Patrick Roberts -- November 28, 2009
Dr.
Roberts is completing a book manuscript, Disasters and the Democratic
State: How Bureaucrats, Politicians, and the Public Prepare for the
Unexpected. He is also working with a colleague to develop a research
proposal on the use of short to medium term climate information in
emergency management.
Pallab Mozumder -- December 4, 2009
Dr. Mozumder recently published a scholarly paper:
Mozumder, P., R. Helton and R. Berrens 2009. "Provision of a Wildfire
Risk Map: Informing Residents in the Wildland Urban Interface", Risk Analysis, 29 (11): 1588-1600.
He also chaired a conference session on Natural Hazards at the Southern
Economic Association Conference in San Antonio, TX (November 21-23,
2009) and presented the following paper:
Mozumder, P. “Understanding Household Demand or Hurricane Risk
Mitigation Information: Evidence from Survey Responses”, Natural
Hazards Session at the Southern Economic Association Meeting, San
Antonio, Texas (November 21-23, 2009).
Sara Grineski -- December 10, 2009
Dr.
Grineski and her colleagues submitted a proposal to the National
Science Foundation. In addition, Dr. Grineski had articles accepted for
publication by Environmental Research and Social Forces).
Laura McLay -- December 11, 2009
This
past year, Laura McLay has continued to work toward her long-term
research goal of establishing a research portfolio in the area of
homeland security and emergency management by applying operations
research methodologies. In her research, she aims to investigate how to
optimally use scarce resources in order to prevent and manage extreme
events.
Dr. McLay’s homeland security
research continues to examine how to optimally deploy and use current
and next-generation screening technologies to prevent nuclear material
from entering the United States through ports or airports using
discrete optimization methodologies. She is particularly interested in
risk-based, multi-layered screening paradigms that examine both the
effects of detection and deterrence as well as identifying and
comparing performance measures.
Dr.
McLay’s research in the domain of emergency response aims to
transform emergency medical service systems by considering new
performance measures for balancing efficiency and equity. Her research
is novel in that it considers how to leverage the response of multiple
types of medical resources for responding to prioritized patients in
order to save patient lives. Her research provides insight into optimal
performance measures for evaluating system performance and shows that
it is not always best to send the closest ambulance to 911 calls.
Abbie Liel -- January 22, 2010
Liel,
Abbie B., Curt B. Haselton and Gregory G. Deierlein, “Seismic
Collapse Safety of Reinforced Concrete Buildings: II. Comparative
Assessment of Non-Ductile and Ductile Moment Frames,” Journal of Structural Engineering, Accepted.
Haselton, Curt B., Abbie B. Liel, Gregory G. Deierlein, Brian S. Dean,
and Jason H. Chou “Seismic Collapse Safety of Reinforced Concrete
Buildings: I. Assessment of Ductile Moment Frames,” Journal of Structural Engineering, Accepted.
Liel, Abbie B. and Kathryn P. Lynch (2009). “Vulnerability of
Reinforced Concrete Frame Buildings and Their Occupants in the 2009
L’Aquila, Italy Earthquake,” Natural Hazards Center, Quick
Response Report.
Yang Zhang -- January 25, 2010
Dr. Zhang is working on articles on land vacancy modeling following
Andrew, environmental hazards and housing choice, and household
mitigation adoptions. One was sent submitted to a journal, one is
near-ready for submission, and the other two are at the data analysis
stage. Dr. Zhang and colleagues have submitted a research proposal for
funding. He is also editing a book sponsorred by PKU-Lincoln Institute
of Land Policy, titled Post-disaster Redevelopment and Urban Planning:
International Experiences and Implications for China. Finally, Dr.
Zhang's work was was discussed in a recent issue of Miller McCune
Magazine, “After the Aftermath”
http://miller-mccune.com/health/after-the-aftermath-1644
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