This page contains links to information about key researchers working in the area of climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and educational technology. The researchers listed on this page are ones that I have come across in my reading, and whose work I found to be important to my research topic. For links to organizations, institutions and related networks check out the section on Web Resources.

Pablo Suarez
Dr. Suarez is the ...with the IFRC Climate Centre. We first met in Panama, in June of 2008, where I was facilitating a regional Red Cross pre-hurricane planning meeting. I was introduced to his work on the use of video-mediated strategies for supporting climate adaptation programming, and learned from him about the need to bring a greater evidence base to support disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation programming. Pablo was able to faciliate a placement for one of the learners (see Toby's work in this section) in the MADEM program at RRU in 2008/9, and an additional two learners (Carla and Micheal) are seeking a similar placement for their Major Research Projects in 2009/10. I have been in discussion with Pablo to identify research gaps and needs, and my research topic has developed from my discussions with him, and my own reading.

Torsten Grothmann

Anthony Patt
Research interests: individual and collective decision-making in relation to climate change

Petra Tschakert - Her research work, both topics and research method, is very much aligned with my own interests.
Research interests: social learning, decision-making and uncertainty, climate change,
Her web page describes her current research projects. Here is a description of one of her new research projects, as described on her website:
"For this new research project, I will be working with Robert Crane (Geography), Esther Prins (Adult Education), Ken Tamminga (Landscape Architecture), and Chris Hoadley (New York University). We hypothesize that cyclical (loop) learning strengthens people's anticipatory capacity in decision-making with respect to climatic and other livelihood stressors. At the core of this research is a resilience-enhancing approach that emphasizes an iterative way of analyzing and learning about changes and uncertainties in the past, present, and future. By focusing explicitly on learning processes and decision-support tools, the aim of the project is to reverse the deterministic notion of presumably vulnerable groups as passive victims of climate change by highlighting people's skills, knowledges, strategic responses, anticipatory capacity, and agency for adaptation planning. I hope that our project will foster people's capacity to influence their future through iterative planning rather than learning by shock. Research will take place in Ghana and Tanzania, in collaboration with partners from the University of Ghana (Geography and Performing Arts), the Afram Plains Development Organization (a Ghanaian NGO), and the University of Dar-es-Salaam (Geography). Please see project flyer for details."

The project flyer contains an illustrations of the research methodology, as well as some of the research questions, which I found to be of interest:Here are some of the questions she and others she is working with are addressing:
How can we facilitate learning and action to increase the coping/adaptive range illustrated by Smit and Wandel (2006)? How do we acknowledge and incorporate uncertainty and surprise in an iterative social learning process built upon a systems view? How do we monitor and learn from past events and actions while anticipating the future? How do we validate different types of knowledge and address power imbalances among multiple and diverse groups of stakeholders?

Here is a video of Petra describing her work and research interests.

Katharine Vincent
Research interests: human dimensions of climate change and adaptation, related politics and policy

Lisa Schipper
Research interests: adaptation to climate change
She has also done work in the area of disaster risk reduction.

Mark Pelling
Research interests: social adaptation (social capital and social learning) in relation to climate change
He is the chair of the Royal Geographic Society with IBG Climate Change Research Group

Sabine Marx
Research interests: decision making under uncertainty and the use of seasonal climate forecasts
She is Associate Director at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) and holds an adjunct research position at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). She is a member of a research team working: Effective Use of Scientific Information: Social Goals, Incentive, Structures, and Learning under Uncertainty, which has the following two research questions: How do incentives, learning, and social goals interact and how do they affect the communication of uncertain information? How do social settings affect learning under uncertainty and can learning from experience be facilitated in a community setting?

Saleemul Huq
Research interests: links between climate change and sustainable development

Ian Burton

Maarten van Aalst

Madeleen Helmer - this link takes you to a video of Madeleen speaking about climate change and disaster risk reduction

Terry Cannon

S. Huq

Ben Wisner
Also see RADIX - Radical Interpretations of Disaster, a blog site by Ben Wisner and Maureen Fordham.