Planning now for the disasters of tomorrow

Disasters know no boundary lines. Floods, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, conflict - they happen anywhere and everywhere on our planet. It's why the University of Delaware's Disaster Research Center (DRC) has a global reach, and it's why that reach has global impact.

You could see both DRC's reach and impact during a daylong workshop for graduate students, held during its 60th anniversary celebration earlier this year. The study and work those students were doing will help policy makers and leaders around the world prepare for disasters of the future.

At one table, for example, six students from five countries - Canada, Ghana, India, Nigeria and the United States - worked together on a planning exercise. Given a general scenario and location, how would they approach disaster research in that context? What would their priorities be? What resources could they anticipate? What challenges should they expect?

They would draw on their studies for this exercise and they would draw on what they heard earlier in the day from expert panelists, some of whom had been studying disasters for decades.

During a panel discussion on quick-response fieldwork, a student went to the microphone to ask a question. But first, he wanted to express a "hearty thank you" to Sarah DeYoung, a core faculty member of DRC, who was part of the panel.

DeYoung, associate professor of sociology and criminology, had deployed to Nepal after the 2015 earthquake that killed about 9,000 people and injured more than 20,000 others. Her focus was on maternal and child health and infant feeding after the earthquake.

Prabin Sharma wanted to acknowledge the impact of her work. Sharma, who recently earned his master's degree in disaster management at the University of North Texas, was a survivor of the 2015 earthquake and wanted to thank DeYoung for the work she and other researchers had done on behalf of his nation.