“I’m exactly where I want to be.” For associate professor of Urban Design and Planning Jan Whittington, this statement sums up her feelings about being on the faculty of a large public university, doing what she loves, with good opportunities to secure research funding. Read Jan’s interview with The Whole U.
Category: Faculty Scholarship and Practice
Washed away, not today— Westport schools participate in tsunami drill
Professor Dan Abramson discusses several ongoing projects with Westport School District that aim to prepare the area for future climate threats, including tsunamis and rising sea levels. | The Daily World
Visiting Scholar: Chung Ho Kim
As a visiting scholar in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, Chung Ho Kim has three goals: reconnect, research, and refresh.
Pride Month | Manish Chalana
Ahead of Pride, UW’s Manish Chalana describes the changing neighborhood of Capitol Hill
https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/06/23/ahead-of-pride-uws-manish-chalana-describes-the-changing-neighborhood-of-capitol-hill/
Marina Alberti |The Benefits and Limits of Urban Tree Planting for Environmental and Human Health
Many of the world’s major cities have implemented tree planting programs based on assumed environmental and social benefits of urban forests. Recent studies have increasingly tested these assumptions and provide empirical evidence for the contributions of tree planting programs, as well as their feasibility and limits, for solving or mitigating urban environmental and social issues.
Click below to read more of this perspective paper co authored by UDP Professor Marina Alberti
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.603757/full
Marina Alberti | International Webinar on Urban Sustainability
Join CEDEUS (Centre of Urban Sustainable Development) of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago on March 9 at 10:00am PST for an International Webinar | “Urban Sustainability in an Eco-Evolutionary Perspective” a talk with Marina Alberti , to be held on March 9 at 3:00 p.m. (Chile). The talk will be broadcast through the Youtube channel of the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies , and the IEUT academic, Carolina Rojas , will moderate.
March 9 (previously scheduled for Jan 12) 3:00 p.m. (Chile) which will be 10:00 am. PST
More info on their website here
Manish Chalana | Upcoming Book :Heritage Conservation in Postcolonial India
Associate Professor Manish Chalana has a book coming out at the end of the month:
Heritage Conservation in Postcolonial India
Approaches and Challenges
Edited By Manish Chalana, Ashima Krishna
Copyright Year 2021
Heritage Conservation in Postcolonial India seeks to position the conservation profession within historical, theoretical, and methodological frames to demonstrate how the field has evolved in the postcolonial decades and follow its various trajectories in research, education, advocacy, and practice.
Click Here for more information
Bob Mugerauer | Decision Making
Dr. Bob Mugerauer has completed work that brings to fruition much of his research conducted over the last ten years on health, and well-being. Specifically, problems concerning decision-making in the professions cover not only the environmental disciplines and practices but also health care and medical clinical practice. Joining many European and American physicians and nurses—especially a group of Scandinavian nurses—recent work conceptually clarifies and critiques excessive claims of positivistic medicine that would minimize the roles of judgment and experiential understanding.
His forthcoming essays will appear in the major Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice in three parts. The editors have made an unprecedented decision to publish the 30,000 word document in successive issues: Professional Judgment in Clinical Practice: part 1: recovering original, moderate evidence-based health care; part 2: Knowledge into Practice; part 3: a better alternative to strong Evidence-Based Medicine. The work has been triple refereed, with a final editorial evaluation as “being a strongoverview of the debates and a significant contribution to the literature.”
Congruent with this, he has been elected a “Distinguished Fellow” to the UK Society for Person-Centered Healthcare. This brings an invitation to publish next work in the European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare” and participate actively in the Society’s Conferences.
Himanshu Grover | Community Resilience Handbook for Disaster Preparedness and Management
Dr. Himanshu Grover’s research lands at the intersection of land use planning, community resilience, and climate change. Dr. Grover is also the co-Director of the Institute for Hazard Mitigation and Planning at the College of Built Environments. His research emphasizes place-based planning policies to balance economic, environmental, and social priorities to achieve equitable development and enhance community resilience.
“The same amount of money that you spent, let’s say, for building your capacity to provide a specific kind of risk communication through your social media platform, can be used for floods, for earthquakes, for terrorist attacks or for epidemics.”
In 2019, America with Kerala: Uniting for a Disaster Resilient Kerala, a joint project organized by the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, the Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) in Kochi, and the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) took place in response to disastrous floods and landslides that devastated Kerala, India. Dr. Grover participated in the project serving as the U.S. subject matter expert. He delivered the keynote address in which he shared the American experience in disaster management, and how it can inform Disaster Management in India. One of his key messages was to adopt an “All Hazards Approach” as a framework for risk reduction. Additionally, he highlighted the need for knowledge building and training at all levels to increase awareness about local hazard threats.
One product of the project was a community resilience resource guide for disaster preparedness that was released late fall of 2020. The guide includes input from community leaders who led disaster response efforts during the 2018 and 2019 floods and landslides in Kerala, as well as U.S. and Indian subject matter experts and other expert sources.
Following the launch of the community resilience handbook, Dr. Himanshu Grover also participated as an expert panelist by the US Consulate in Chennai. This online event had an attendance of more than 500 people internationally. The November 2020 panel, moderated by Dr. D. Dhanuraj, CPPR Chairman, included speakers Dr. Muralee Thummarukudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Dr. Himanshu Grover, co-director, Institute for Hazard Mitigation and Planning, College of Built Environments, University of Washington; Dr. Nivedita P. Haran, IAS (Retired), Honorary Chairperson, Board of Directors, Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, Kerala; and Dr. Shekhar L. Kuriakose, Member Secretary, Kerala State Disaster Management Authority.
As a follow-up to the 2019 initiative, U.S. State Department, through U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, asked Dr. Grover to develop a Disaster Management Curriculum for a new, 40-hour elective course to be incorporated into existing academic programs in universities, autonomous colleges, and other relevant governmental and non-governmental agencies across India. After developing the curriculum, Dr. Grover will visit India on a speaking tour to promote the curriculum among relevant institutions. This American/internationally approved curriculum will help develop regional expertise in disaster management; promote academic collaboration between Indian and U.S. institutions in this area and highlight opportunities to attract students and practitioners across India to seek higher studies in this field in the United States. Dr. Grover anticipates that his initiative will establish the College of Built Environments as a leader in disaster management education. He hopes this collaboration will result in establishing partnerships with reputed Indian educational institutions and professional bodies which will lead to increased opportunities for student recruitment as well as placements for our graduates.
Robert Freitag | Story Telling
Bob Freitag is actively involved in exploring how storytelling can help communities address difficult emotionally charged topics. Opportunities available through storytelling is described in a published in the Story telling Freitag et al JEM. He published a follow up article that actually tells a story, “showings” how threaten community residents address climate change. Bob is currently write a screen play, again showing, how a participate let process using storytelling.
ABSTRACT
Almost everyone can relate to the experience of telling a story. This article explores how storytelling is being used to identify risks and create hazard mitigation strategies, as well as how it can promote learning within the field of emergency management. Storytelling is both a pedagogical tool and an invaluable resource for practicing emergency managers. This article illustrates the ways in which the process of telling a story enables participates to talk about stressful concerns, internalize complex concepts, and even have fun. The article explores how storytelling drove the public process leading to the adoption of hazard mitigation plans, and how eight types of stories, as defined by the American humorist Kurt Vonnegut, can strengthen emergency management education. This article also explores how research suggests that storytelling can provide an effective way for both the tellers of story and their listeners to find meaning in events, provide context to what is being taught, transmit emotion along with information, develop a professional identity, build empathy and compassion, and help with remembering events and lessons learned. The authors have a long history of utilizing storytelling and present this article in order to share and explore storytelling as applied to the discipline of emergency management.