Executive director of new Integrated Disaster Research Programme appointed
Dr Jane Rovins (USA) has been appointed as Executive Director of the new Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) programme. The programme's co-sponsors—ICSU, the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR)—made the appointment following an extensive international search.
Dr Rovins is currently Associate Professor at the American Military University, where she gives graduate and undergraduate courses on risk analysis, mitigation and disaster management. She is also a Senior Planner with a private-sector company providing hazards mitigation and emergency management training.
She has worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on mitigation and responses to events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Ivan. She has lived and worked in West Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, and developed a workplan for the ASEAN Regional Forum on disaster preparedness and relief adopted in July 2009.
She holds a PhD in International Development and Disaster Management from the Tulane University Law School, New Orleans. Dr Rovins will take up her post at the end of May. One of her first tasks will be to establish the International Programme Office for IRDR, which will be located in Beijing at the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.