A Social Research Conference at The New School

Disasters: Recipes and Remedies - Thursday and Friday, November 1-2, 2007

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Elliot Aronson is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCSC, is best known for his groundbreaking research on social influence and persuasion. He has written 22 books including The Social Animal (Viking, 1972), Age of Propaganda (W H Freeman & Co, 1991), Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion After Columbine (Worth Publishers, 2000), and, in 2007, Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) (Harcourt). Aronson is the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to have received all three of its highest awards: For Distinguished Research, Distinguished Teaching, and Distinguished Writing. Among his other awards are the Gordon Allport prize for his contributions to inter-racial harmony and the William James Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Psychological Science (2007). Recently, his peers named him as one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the 20th Century. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences and has served as President of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology as well as President of the Western Psychological Association

Reid Basher is currently the Senior Coordinator of the Inter-Agency and Policy Coordination Unit in the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Previously he headed the ISDR Platform for the Promotion of Early Warning, in Bonn, for the ISDR secretariat. His interests lie in the interaction of science, policy, and applications practice concerning climate risk and disasters, early warning and the management of seasonal variability, and adaptation to climate change. Before joining the secretariat in January 2004, Reid was Director for Applications Research at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI), Columbia University, New York. A New Zealand citizen, he has been responsible for a broad range of public and commercial climate services in his home country. His qualifications include a Diploma of Business Administration in addition to a PhD in atmospheric science and BSc (Hns) in physics. Reid worked in Fiji for two years, where he developed a seasonal outlook scheme for tropical cyclones in the South Pacific islands, and was an active participant in and consultant to activities of the South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP). He has been a lead author in impacts reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and has held committee leadership roles in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Robert D. Bullard is the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. He is the author of fourteen books that address sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, emergency response, smart growth, and regional equity. His book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Westview Press, 2000), is a standard text in the environmental justice field. His most recent books include Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (MIT Press, 2003), Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity (South End Press, 2004), The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (Sierra Club Books, 2005), Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity (MIT Press, 2007), and The Black Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century: Race, Power, and the Politics of Place (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). Professor Bullard is co-author of In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster, and Race After Katrina (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006) and Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United States (United Church of Christ Witness & Justice Ministries, 2007). He is completing a new book titled Deadly Waiting Game Beyond Hurricane Katrina: Government Response, Unnatural Disasters, and African Americans (New York University Press, forthcoming).

Lee Clarke is Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. Clarke, is author of Mission Improbable and Worst Cases: Terror & Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination, both from the University of Chicago Press. Clarke has written about the Y2K problem, risk communication, panic, civil defense, evacuation, community response to disaster, organizational failure, and near earth objects. Dr. Clarke has written for, or been featured in, The Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, NY Daily News, The New York Times and Harvard Business Review. His edited volume, Terrorism and Disaster: New Threats, New Ideas, was published in 2003. Clarke was awarded the Rutgers Graduate School Award for Excellence in Teaching and Graduate Research, 1996-1997, and Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools' 1998 Graduate Mentoring Award. In August 2005 he was honored with the Fred Buttel Distinguished Scholarship Award by the Environment and Technology section of the American Sociological Association. During spring 2007 Clarke was the Anschutz Distinguished Scholar at Princeton University. Clarke served on a National Academy of Science committee whose report, Reopening Public Facilities After a Biological Attack: A Decision-Making Framework, was published in June 2005. He is currently writing about New Jersey's response to the anthrax attacks of 2001, the Department of Energy's long term stewardship program, the politics of planning for near earth objects, and problems concerning the national critical infrastructure.

Michael A. Cohen is Director of the International Affairs Program. He also works as Advisor to the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning of the University of Buenos Aires. Before coming to the New School in 2001, he was a Visiting Fellow of the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University. From 1972 to 1999, he had a distinguished career at the World Bank. He was responsible for much of the urban policy development of the Bank over that period and, from 1994-1998, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Bank's Vice-President for Environmentally Sustainable Development. He has worked in over fifty countries and was heavily involved in the Bank's work on infrastructure, environment, and sustainable development. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Panel on Urban Dynamics. He is the author or editor of several books, including most recently Preparing the Urban Future: Global Pressures and Local Forces (ed. with A. Garland, B. Ruble, and J. Tulchin), The Human Face of the Urban Environment (ed. with I. Serageldin), and Urban Policy and Economic Development: An Agenda for the 1990s. Other recent publications include articles in 25 Years of Urban Development (Amersfoort, The Netherlands, 1998), Cities Fit for People (Kirdar, ed., 1996), The Brookings Review, Journal of the Society for the Study of Traditional Environments, International Social Science Review, Habitat International, and Finance and Development. He is currently completing a study of urban inequality in Buenos Aires. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, The Johns Hopkins University, and the School of Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning of the University of Buenos Aires.

Ronald Kassimir is a noted expert on contemporary African politics and religion and joined The New School for Social Research as Associate Dean. For the past ten years, Kassimir has worked at the Social Science Research Council as program director. During his tenure at the SSRC, he directed its Africa Program and, between 2000 and 2005, headed up its International Dissertation Field Research (IDRF) Fellowship Program. Arguably, the IDRF Program is the most prestigious fellowship program for social science doctoral students in the United States. Its mission is to support innovative and interdisciplinary research whose aims are international in the best sense. He also took the SSRC in new directions via the internationalization of long-standing programs as well as the creation of new ones. Of particular importance to Kassimir is youth activism and citizenship in Africa, the public role of African universities, the relationship between transnational studies and African studies, and the social science of humanitarian intervention. These issues have long mattered to him as both a scholar and administrator. Indeed, while working at the SSRC, he continued publishing scholarly work in many journals and periodicals, including Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Africa Today, the Canadian Journal of African Studies, and the Journal of Higher Education in Africa. Kassimir also co-edited three books: Youth Activism: An International Encyclopedia; Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa; and Youth, Globalization, and Law. Kassimir started teaching courses in the Department of Political Science beginning in fall 2006, along with maintaining his position as associate dean.

Howard Kunreuther is the Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Public Policy at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania as well as serving as Co-Director of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. He has a long-standing interest in ways that society can better manage low probability-high consequence events as it relates to technological and natural hazards and has published extensively on the topic. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, receiving the Society's Distinguished Achievement Award in 2001. Kunreuther has written or co-edited a number of books and papers including Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk (with Patricia Grossi) and Wharton on Making Decisions (with Stephen Hoch). He is a recipient of the Elizur Wright Award for the publication that makes the most significant contribution to the literature of insurance.

Erwann Michel-Kerjan is with the Wharton School, Managing Director of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, a center with over 20 years of experience in developing strategies and policies for dealing with catastrophic risks. Erwann joined Wharton in 2002 after he completed his doctoral studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Over the past 10 years, he has worked with many top decision makers helping corporations and governments address this new large-scale risk landscape, develop appropriate solutions and create market opportunities. His research focuses on managing and financing extreme events, primarily natural disasters and mega-terrorism. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 publications at the crux of financial management and global risk governance, and his views regularly appear in leading media. From 2003 to 2005 he served on the OECD Task Force on Terrorism Insurance which published Terrorism Insurance in OECD Countries in July 2005, and in 2005 he co-led, with Howard Kunreuther, the Wharton initiative TRIA and Beyond on the future of terrorism risk financing in the United States. His most recent book, Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response, How Private Action Can Reduce Public Vulnerability (with P. Auerswald, L. Branscomb and T. LaPorte, at Harvard and GMU), is the first attempt to analyze the private efficiency-public vulnerability trade-off in the context of extreme event management (Cambridge University Press, 2006). In 2007, Dr. Michel-Kerjan was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos), an honor bestowed to recognize and acknowledge the most extraordinary world leaders under the age of 40.

William Morrish is Elwood R. Quesada Professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban and Environmental Planning, at the School of Architecture, University of Virginia. In 1994, William Morrish was hailed by New York Times architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp; "as the most valuable thinker in urbanism today." This work is exemplified by his innovative urban design plan for The City of Phoenix, Arizona's public art plan which unites artist and public work engineers in the transformation of city utilities into the a citywide cultural setting and new public realm. Morrish's urban design work approaches infrastructure as a cultural landscape - the connective safety net that knits citizens, public spaces, social institutions, cultural expression and the natural environment into multi-operational urban landscape networks. With architects Rafael Vinoly and Fredric Schwartz, in 2002, Morrish was a member of the architectural collaborative called, THINK. This interdisciplinary team competed against six national and international architectural firms in the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation of New York -"Innovative Design Competition"- for the future master plan of the World Trade Center. THINK won the competition. A former resident of New Orleans, he has been working for the last year and half in collaboration with local and national design firms and not for profit agencies on the processes of rebuilding the City of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina. He is writing a book on his experience working to rebuild city and the lessons that might be drawn from this effort for other American cites, called, Re-float NOLA "and American Cities will rise. William Morrish is the author of, Civilizing Terrains: Mountains, Mounds and Mesas (William Stout Architectural Books, 2004).

John C. Mutter is deputy director and associate vice provost of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and a professor in the departments of earth and environmental sciences and of international and public affairs. Mutter teaches undergraduates about such complex, dynamic Earth systems as earthquakes and climate variations. His graduate students in marine seismology learn how seismic energy is used to understand the Earth's interior; he also coordinates the natural science component of the Ph.D. in sustainable development. Mutter has two main areas of research. The first is global tectonics using geophysical techniques. He has conducted more than 30 research cruises in all parts of the world including the Arctic and Antarctic, and has authored or co-authored more than 70 articles in scientific journals, as well as many popular publications. He is currently an editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research. Mutter's second area of research is the relationship between natural systems and human well-being with particular focus on the vulnerability of poor societies to natural variations and extreme conditions. Most recently these studies included examination of Katrina's impact and that of the 2004 tsunami.

Eric K. Noji is a physician who has recently joined the Center for Health Transformation in Washington DC as a Senior Fellow for Health and National Security after a distinguished career in public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His last CDC assignment was serving as Senior Policy Advisor for Emergency & Humanitarian Assistance to the Director in Washington, D.C. Since 2002, he has been responsible for working with Congress, the White House and other Executive Branch agencies on issues related to emergency health preparedness and national security. In this position, he has been detailed as a consultant for Chemical and Biological Medical Readiness to both the Pentagon's Chemical & Biological Defense Program and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. During the spring and summer of 2003, Dr. Noji served as Deputy Medical Director of the US Government's Humanitarian Assistance Mission for Operation Iraqi Freedom responsible for the rapid determination of the medical and health needs of the Iraqi civilian population and recognition and treatment of potential biological, chemical, radiological and blast injuries (e.g., improvised explosive devices). He was President of the Society of Alumni of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health from 1999 to 2005 and the recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Government Service in 2004. An award named in Dr. Noji's honor is awarded annually by the Department of Defense's Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance to recognize exceptional teaching, research and leadership in emergency health management, tactical and operational medicine, peace-keeping operations and civil-military cooperation in the field. Dr. Noji is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific articles and publications on disaster medicine, field applications of epidemiology in mass emergencies, clinical toxicology and the medical response to terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, refugee crises, famine and complex humanitarian emergencies including the most widely used educational textbook on these topics, The Public Health Consequences of Disasters (Oxford University Press) and the recently published clinical textbook, Disaster Medicine (Elsevier). Dr. Noji was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies of Science in October, 2005.

Michael Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also the Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) at the Woodrow Wilson School, and Associated Faculty of the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences Program. He joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with Environmental Defense. His interests include science and policy of the atmosphere, particularly climate change and its impacts. His research explores the potential impacts of global warming, including the effects of warming on ecosystems and on the nitrogen cycle as well as on the ice sheets and sea level, in the context of defining "dangerous anthropogenic interference" with the climate system. He served as a lead author of the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and is also a lead author for the Fourth Assessment. He was a member of the National Research Council's Panel on the Atmospheric Effects of Aviation, and currently a member of the NRC's Panel on Climate Variability and Change. He also has served on several university and institutional advisory boards. Prior to his position at Environmental Defense, Dr. Oppenheimer served as Atomic and Molecular Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Lecturer on Astronomy at Harvard University. He received an S.B. in chemistry from M.I.T., a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago, and pursued post-doctoral research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Charles Perrow is a past Vice President of the Eastern Sociological Society; a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavorial Sciences (1981-2, 1999); Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science; Resident Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, 1990-91; Fellow, Shelly Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, 1995-96; Visitor, Institute for Advanced Studies, 1995-96, Princeton University; former member of the Committee on Human Factors, National Academy of Sciences, of the Sociology Panel of the National Science Foundation, and of the editorial boards of several journals. An organizational theorist, he is the author of six books, including: The Radical Attack on Business (1972), Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View (1970), Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay (1972; 3rd ed., 1986), award winning Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies (1984; revised, 1999), award winning The AIDS Disaster: The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation (1990) with Mauro Guillen, award winning Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of American Capitalism (2002) The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters (2007) and over 50 articles. His interests include the development of bureaucracy in the 19th Century; the radical movements of the 1960s; Marxian theories of industrialization and of contemporary crises; accidents in such high risk systems as nuclear plants, air transport, DNA research and chemical plants; protecting the nation's critical infrastructure; the prospects for democratic work organizations; and the origins of U.S. capitalism.

Enrico L. Quarantelli is Founding Director of the Disaster Research Center and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He was Co-Director of DRC (both at Ohio State University and University of Delaware) for almost 30 years. He has served on numerous domestic and foreign disaster-related committees and journal editorial boards. He was the first president of the ISA International Research Committee on Disasters, founder and first editor of the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, and given the Charles E. Fritz Career Achievement Award in 1995. Quarantelli has been principal investigator on over 40 research projects, has authored or edited 27 books and monographs, as well as authored of 94 chapters in books, 107 articles and over 100 other publications on disaster topics. His current research includes such topics as future social trends in disasters and catastrophes; the computer revolution and effects on disaster planning and disaster research; anti-social behavior in crises; and theoretical problems of conceptualizing disasters.

Irwin Redlener is Associate Dean and Professor of Clinical Public Health and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Redlener is also president and co-founder of the Children's Health Fund and has expertise in health care systems, crisis response and public policy with respect to access to health care for underserved populations. The National Center for Disaster Preparedness runs one of the nation's largest programs for training public health workers in emergency preparedness. Other major initiatives focus on public health and preparedness strategies, trauma and resiliency, school-based preparedness and the special needs of children affected by mass casualty events. The Center also conducts extensive research in public opinion and attitudes regarding a wide range of issues pertaining to terrorism, megadisasters, personal preparedness and confidence in government to prevent or prepare for large-scale catastrophes. Center researchers have conducted ground-breaking studies on the effects of Hurricane Katrina upon children of the Gulf, the continuing long-range affects of 9/11 on children, emergency evacuation protocols, the ability and willingness of health care workers to report for duty in the event of terror attacks and the effectiveness of community-based preparedness programs. Dr. Redlener, a pediatrician, has worked extensively in the Gulf region following hurricane Katrina where he helped establish on-going medical and public health programs. He also organized medical response teams in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 and has had disaster management leadership experience internationally and nationally. He is the author of Americans At Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared For Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now, (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 2006).

Nicholas Scoppetta, former Commissioner for the Administration for Children's Services in the Giuliani administration, was appointed as New York City's 31st Fire Commissioner by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on December 30, 2001. Commissioner Scoppetta heads a Department with more than 16,000 Fire, EMS and civilian members, the world's busiest fire suppression and emergency medical services agency. His extensive experience in government and management spans more than four decades. Commissioner Scoppetta's leadership abilities will play a vital role in strengthening and rebuilding the Department which lost 343 members on September 11th, 2001. Fire Commissioner Scoppetta is a former Deputy Mayor and Commissioner of Investigation for the City of New York. He has served as Assistant District Attorney in New York County by District Attorney Frank S. Hogan, Associate Counsel to the Knapp Commission, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and as the Deputy Independent Counsel in the investigation and prosecution of a former Special Assistant to the President of the United States. Fire Commissioner Scoppetta has served on numerous boards of not-for-profit institutions and is a past member of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He is also a past President and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Children's Aid Society. From February 1994 to January 1996, he was Chairman of the five-member Commission to Combat Police Corruption, which was created by former Mayor Giuliani to monitor the New York City Police Department's anti-corruption efforts.

Joel Towers is Director of Sustainable Design and Urban Ecology at Parsons School of Design, New School University, and a partner in the office of SR+T Architects. The Parsons program is a transdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate course of study that explores sustainability, urbanity, and ecology through art and design. Linked to the emerging environmental studies initiative across New School University it provides a unique opportunity for students and faculty to develop socio-natural models for the 21st Century. A practicing architect, Towers holds a Masters Degree in Architecture from Columbia University and has served on the faculties of both City College and Columbia. He was the project director for The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability in the office of William McDonough Architects prior to co-founding SR+T Architects in 1992 with Karla Rothstein. SR+T1s work has been published in journals and books including Casabella and Architecture Magazine.

Robert J. Ursano, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland and founding Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS). Dr. Ursano is widely published in the areas of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and public health planning for the psychological effects of terrorism, bioterrorism, traumatic events and disasters including war. Dr. Ursano has over 300 publications, is the co-author or editor of eight books and is Editor of Psychiatry and senior editor of the first Textbook of Disaster Psychiatry (Cambridge University Press), which will be published in fall 2007. Dr. Ursano was the first Chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster. He has received the Department of Defense Humanitarian Service Award and the highest award of the International Traumatic Stress Society, The Lifetime Achievement Award, for "outstanding and fundamental contributions to understanding traumatic stress". He is the recipient of the William C. Porter Award from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. Dr Ursano chaired the development of the first American Psychiatric Association's Treatment Guidelines for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder. Most recently he and CSTS were asked by the American Public Health Association and the World Health Organization to assist in drafting guidelines for behavioral health and a potential influenza pandemic.

Jonathan Veitch is Acting Dean at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, the liberal arts school of the university, directed toward traditional-age undergraduates. He is the author of American Superrealism: Nathanael West and the Politics of Representation in the 1930s. He was previously Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Madison and chairman of humanities at the New School for Social Research.

Joseph Westphal is University of Maine System Professor and a tenured member of the political science faculty at the University of Maine. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Westphal was the Chancellor of the University of Maine System. Dr. Westphal's areas of teaching and research are American Politics, Congress, and Public Policy to include environment, national security, homeland security and education. He spent 12 years on the faculty of Oklahoma State University. He also taught as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. From 1988 to 1995, Dr. Westphal worked in the United States Congress. He was later confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Assistant Secretary of the Army and head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and then as Acting Secretary of the Army. During his career, Dr. Westphal serves as Special Assistant, Office of the Secretary of the Interior and Senior Policy Advisor on Water at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Dean Yang is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Ford School of Public Policy and Department of Economics, University of Michigan. Professor Yang teaches courses in development economics and in microeconomics. His specific areas of interest include international migration, human capital, disasters, international trade, and crime and corruption. Currently, he is conducting randomized field experiments in El Salvador (on the impact of financial products innovations on remittances) and Malawi (on the impact of credit and insurance on technology adoption among farmers). His past research has examined the impact of remittances on child schooling and entrepreneurship in Philippine households, the effectiveness of preshipment inspections on customs corruption worldwide, and how international financial flows (foreign aid and remittances, in particular) respond to hurricanes in developing countries. During 2006-07, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. He has worked as a consultant on development issues for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and in El Salvador and Peru. He received his undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Harvard University.