Mo Hamza is Professor of Risk Management and Societal Safety at Lund University, Sweden. In his career spanning 36 years so far, he has worked with international development organisations including: World Bank, ADB, UNDP, UNISDR, USAID, DfID, IFRC, IUCN, Swedish Red Cross, and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). His primary areas of professional expertise and research work are: Disaster risk and vulnerability reduction, post-disaster recovery, climate change impact and adaptation in fragile and failed states, and environmental displacement. Previously he was Chair of Social Vulnerability Studies at the United Nations University, Bonn, Germany; a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden and an advisor to the MIT Climate CoLab. He has undertaken consultancy and research work in: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, UK, South Eastern Europe and the Balkan States. He is currently an advisor to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) where he is responsible for their capacity development processes. Among various and more recent publications, Mo Hamza was the co-guest editor of a double special issue in Global Discourse Journal (2022) “Critical Exploration of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness and Potentialities”, and the author of “Refugees’ Integration in the Built Environment - The Sweden Case” in Sustainability Journal 2021. He was also the lead author and editor of the World Disasters Report (2015) “Focus on local actors, the key to humanitarian effectiveness”.
Prof. Amaratunga a leading international expert in disaster resilience with an extensive academic career that has a strong commitment to encouraging colleagues and students to fulfil their full potential. Currently she is leading University of Huddersfield, UK’s Global Disaster Resilience Centre. She is recognised for her career-long impact up until 2020, and is placed among the global top 2% of influential scientists, according to the report of “Composite Citation Metrics” by Elsevier BV Netherlands and Stanford University, USA, released in August 2021. She has project managed to successful completion a large number of international research projects (over £ 20 million) generating significant research outputs and outcomes. She provides expert advice on disaster resilience to national and local governments and international agencies including the UNDRR. To date, she has produced over 500 publications, refereed papers, and reports, and has made over 100 keynote speeches in around 40 countries. Among many leadership roles, she is the joint chief editor of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. She is a member of the European Commission and UNDRR’s European Science & Technology Advisory Group (ESTAG) representing the UK, a Steering Committee member of the UK Frontiers of Development programme, a Steering Committee member of the UK Alliance for Disaster Research, motivation of which is to bring together the UK’s rich and diverse disaster research community to facilitate collaboration and partnership. She is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society, and a Fellow and a Chartered Manager of the Chartered Management Institute, UK.
Richard Haigh is Professor of Disaster Resilience and Co-Director of the University of Huddersfield’s Global Disaster Resilience Centre in the UK. His research interests include multi-hazard early warning, disaster risk governance and resilience in the built environment. He is the Editor-In-Chief of the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment and Co-Chair of the International Conferences on Building Resilience, which started in 2008. He is an expert member of Working Group 1 of Intergovernmental Coordination Group on the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (ICG/IOTWMS). Richard and his team won the Newton Prize for Indonesia, celebrating best research innovation partnership for the project Mainstreaming Integrated Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaption Strategies into Coastal Urban Agglomeration Policy. He has led and successfully delivered research grants funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council, the European Commission’s Horizon 2020, Erasmus+, Framework Seven Programme, Lifelong Learning, Asia Link and European Social Fund, the UK Newton Fund, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, British Council and UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Many of these projects were carried out in close collaboration with government, non-government organisations and industry partners. He has published widely, including an edited book by Wiley Blackwell, fifteene
