Christina Andersson
Crisis Response
Christina Andersson is a risk and crisis communication strategist. She has worked with questions related to public risk awareness and preparedness for crisis for almost 15 years and is the project manager for the Swedish booklet “If Crisis or War Comes” as well as for the annual Swedish Emergency Preparedness Week and for national information campaigns during the pandemic in 2021.
Chi Brouwer
Chi Projectmanagement & Advies
Chi Brouwer is the project manager and advisor of her own company. She has experience in disaster management, crisis management and integrated safety. She was closely involved in, for example, the realization of the Security Region in the Netherland, the merging of control rooms and the coordination of the national COVID-19 information hub, as well as the reception of Ukrainians. From the start to the realization of projects involving both regional and (inter)national stakeholders, she brings together various parties, interests, and cultures.
Adrian Bucałowski
National Headquarters of the State Fire Service of Poland
Adrian Bucałowski is Deputy Director of Civil Protection Department at National Headquarters of the State Fire Service of Poland. He started his career in the NGO sector by coordinating civic volunteering and youth empowerment projects. He joined the State Fire Service in 2010 and since beginning he was responsible for international cooperation. He represents Poland at the EU Civil Protection Committee and in the Knowledge Network Board and is also the Polish focal point for the Policy Area SECURE of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.
Peter Daly
ICEM Irish Centre for Emergency Management
Peter Daly is Responsible for Emergency Management in the Health Service Executive. Post Grad Qualifications in Science and Engineering. Line Manager for Interagency Office. Joined HSE from the Military in rank of Commandant. While with the DF was seconded to UNSCOM as a weapons inspector.
Geir Ellingsen
Department of Societal Security and Preparedness of Norway
Geir Ellingsen is a special advisors of the International Office of the Department of Societal Security and Preparedness. His background stems from the Military and civil protection, and he has been an active expert in the UCPM since 2011. He was a trainer for UCPM experts in training courses and exercises over several years, and he was the project officer for Civil Protection exercises. Geir has deployed within the UCPM both as Team leader and ERCC Liaison Officer. One of his latest deployment was to Moldova, related to the refugee influx from Ukraine. Geir has also deployed with the International Humanitarian Partnership (IPH) in support of WFP, and he is an UNDAC member.
Raffaello Fico
Abruzzo region
Raffaello Fico is an expert engineer in post-earthquake reconstruction. He was responsible for the ReLUIS (Rete dei Laboratori Universitari di Ingegneria Sismica) that operated in the emergency phase after the Abruzzo earthquake of 6 April 2009, until 2013. Since then he has been responsible for the private reconstruction of the Special Office for the Reconstruction of the Crater Municipalities (USRC), as coordinator of the reconstruction of 56 small historic centres in 3 provinces of Abruzzo.
Carmine Galasso
University College London / Scuola Universitaria Superiore
Carmine Galasso, PhD, is an Associate Professor. His research focuses on the development and application of probabilistic and statistical methods and tools for catastrophe risk modelling and disaster risk reduction. He investigates risks to building portfolios and infrastructure exposed to multiple natural hazards, including earthquakes, strong winds, and flooding, with special emphasis on developing countries. The ultimate goal is to provide society with a sustainable, safe, and resilient built environment.
Veronica Grasso
World Meteorological Organization
Veronica Grasso is the Scientific and Programme Officer oat the World Meteorological Organization. She is a civil engineer with more than 15 years’ experience in disaster risk reduction and adaptation both at national and international levels. Her work on early warning systems has been recognized in the 2010 edition of Who’s Who in America. Before joining WMO, she worked as Programme Specialist in the Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery Team at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), providing technical support to UNDP country offices on disaster risk reduction.
Jon Hall
Resilience Advisors Network
Jon Hall is the managing director of Resilience Advisors Network. He is a emergency & disaster specialist, former Chief Fire Officer and head of UK fire & rescue resilience and government advisor. More recently, Jon headed organisational development for Capita following their purchase of the blue light training facility at Moreton-in-Marsh and was responsible for corporate training and creation of the ‘School of Resilience’. Jon left in 2015 to establish Resilience Advisors Ltd, a new company with ‘the Network’ at its heart! The aim of the Network is simply to spread the knowledge of some of the most experienced resilience practitioners into the business sector. His early career saw early roles managing high-risk operations in the marine oil & gas industry which led to a long & successful career within the emergency services and as the government’s first resilience adviser.
Lucia Castro Herrera
University of Agder
Lucia Castro Herrera is a PhD candidate at the Information Systems department at the University of Agder, Norway. Her research interests include crisis, disaster and risk management, social media in the context of crisis communications, logistics, and process improvement. Apart from academia, Lucia counts with professional experience in process improvement and emergency management with international, private, and public organizations in multicultural and multidisciplinary environments.
Marco Lombardi
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Marco Lombardi, director of Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues & Managing Emergencies (ITSTIME) research center, is full professor at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, where he teaches Crisis management and risk communication, Mass Communication theory, Sociology, Intelligence and counter terrorism, Security policies. He is member of the scientific board of the School of Doctorate, the masters in Cultural Diplomacy and the School of Journalism. He managed several EU founded research projects mainly focused on terrorism, security and crisis management.
Carlos Mendes
Portuguese National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection
Carlos Mendes is the Head of Department for risk analysis and emergency planning in the Portuguese National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection. His activities are currently mainly focussed on prevention and preparedness, at a strategic level, including the implementation of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy. Other fields of action are risk assessment, emergency planning. His activities are currently mainly focussed on prevention and preparedness, at a strategic level, Increase citizens’ risk awareness in the face of new risks including the implementation of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy.
Massimiliano Pittore
Eurac Research
Massimiliano Pittore is the research group leader of Center for Climate Change and Transformation. He dedicates his skills, collected throughout a heterogeneous working experience, to devising new approaches and methodologies to consistently, continuously and reliably model and validate exposure, vulnerability and risk (impact) models in the framework of natural hazards. A particular focus of his research lines is on the collection and integration of multi-source information and the probabilistic modelling of physical and societal exposure and vulnerability models over multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Chaim Rafalowsky
Magen David Adom Istrael
Chaim Rafalowsky is in charge of the coordination with the International movement of the Red Cross, preparing for and responding to major disaster, globally and in Israel (e.g. a major earthquake, being Israel a seismic prone area). Specifically, Magen David Adom is working with the Israeli authorities on preparing for receiving international health units in the case of a major EQ affecting the region, with the ambition of reducing the obstacles for these units and their personnel to enter and operate in country. As part of Magen David Adom’s preparedness activities we have volunteers trained in need’s assessment and the use of the tools of the red Cross movement for disaster management.
Zuzana Stanton-Geddes
The World Bank
Zuzana Stanton-Geddes is a Disaster Risk Management Specialist with the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, leading and co-leading regional and country-specific projects in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, and Romania. Zuzana has over 10 years of experience working on development projects and analytics related to urban resilience, critical infrastructure, seismic and flood risk management, and post-disaster recovery. While working in the East Asia and the Pacific region (2010-2020), Zuzana has worked on countries including Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Indonesia, and China.
Alexandre Oliveira Tavares
Centre for Social Studies University of Coimbra
Alexandre Oliveira Tavares is an associate professor with Agregation in the School of Sciences and Technology. He is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, where he has been working in Risk Analysis and Management, Landscape Evolution and Land Use Planning, with focus on susceptibility mapping, natural resources management and public policies. He is a researcher of the Observatory of Risk (OSIRIS) of the Centre for Social Studies. Teacher in the interfaculty Mater in Social Dynamics, Natural and Technological Risks course and in the PhD interuniversity course in Territory, Risk and Public Policies.
Arvi Uustalu
Estonian Rescue Board
Arvi Uustalu works at Estonian Rescue Board, Southern Regional Rescue Service as head of Prevention Bureau. Prevention activities at the regional level cover training and raising awareness of population and communities in the field of fire safety and water safety. Additionally due to the Ukrainan war is lately the main priority for us civil protection, resilience and preparedness activities among civil population and communities in case of massive power outages or war. Estonian Rescue Board is conducting several civil protection information campaigns, early warning system and SMS-alert and sheltering development, crisis planning and formation of crisis teams in communities, survival centers development and other projects. There is good cooperation with University of Tartu in the field of vulnerability of population during crisis for example Builders project.
Merilyn Viin
Development Centre of Võru County
Merilyn Viin is the Welfare Project Manager at the Development Center of Voru, being responsible for the development and coordination of the security field at the county level. Through the work of the county crisis committee, the focus is on increasing cooperation between local governments, solving welfare and security issues. Various projects are carried out in the region, which aim is to raise the general level of crisis preparedness, by doing preventive work through trainings, seminars, and exercises at the level of the local government, communities, and villages. Recent projects: participation in the BuildERS project; contribution to the development of an interactive crisis vulnerability assessment tool; member of the research network Connect4Resilience.
Gerhard Wotawa
GeoSphere Austria
Gerhard Wotawa currently works as Austrian GEO/GEOSS coordinator at the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG). He is also senior verification expert at the Austrian CTBTO National Data Centre hosted by ZAMG. During recent environmental crisis situations (Eyjafjallajökull volcano and nuclear crisis in Japan), Gerhard Wotawa was responsible for the management of the ZAMG response.
Gavriil Xanthopoulos
Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER”
Gavriil Xanthopoulos is an associate researcher specializing in forest fires at the Institute of Mediterranean Forest Ecosystems of the Hellenic Agricultural Organization “Demeter”. He has been active in European forest fire research for more than 25. His research interests include forest fire policy, fire prevention, fire danger rating, fire behavior, fuel management, firefighting, post-fire rehabilitation, forest fires and climate change, and new technologies in fire management.