Committee Members
Philip Ward
Prof. Philip Ward is Full Professor of Global Water Risk Dynamics at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Senior Advisor Disaster Risk Management at Deltares. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the MYRIAD-EU project: in this role he leads a consortium of 20 institutes developing state-of-the-art methods for assessing and reducing multi-hazard risk. He is also the science lead of the ESA-funded project EO4MULTIHA, in which the role of Earth Observations in reducing disaster risk is being investigated
Annegret Thieken
Annegret Thieken is Full Professor of Geography and Disaster Risk Research at the Institute of Environmental Science and Geography at the University of Potsdam, Germany. With a background in Environmental Sciences, she has researched on water-related risks over the past 25 years addressing a broad range of topics in disaster risk management and climate change adaptation, e.g., analysis and modelling of flood losses, multi-risk studies, evaluation of flood risk mitigation measures and adaptive behaviour. Since 2019, she has been the speaker of NatRiskChange.
Jana SillmanN
Jana Sillmann is Full Professor for Climate Extremes at the University of Hamburg (Germany) and executive director of the Research Unit for Sustainability and Climate Risk. Her work focuses on relating physical aspects of weather and climate extremes to socio-economic impacts and questions related to risk assessment and decision-making. She is co-chair of the Risk KAN and represents the Risk KAN in the Future Earth General Assembly. She is also Lead Author of Chapter 12 “Climate change information for regional impact and for risk assessment” in the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1.
Timothy Tiggeloven
Timothy Tiggeloven is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and is part of the management and coordination team of the MYRIAD-EU project. His ongoing research focuses on using novel methods, such as machine learning techniques, to detect multi-hazard risks and better understand the interaction of hazards and social vulnerability.
Karen Lebek
Karen Lebek is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Geography at the University of Potsdam, Germany. She has a background in environmental sciences and geography and has been doing research on water insecurity and rapid disaster analysis. Since 2022, she is scientific coordinator of the DFG-funded research training group NatRiskChange and also engages in science communication.
Marleen de ruiter
Marleen de Ruiter is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on multi- and consecutive disasters, improving modelling capabilities and understanding of multi-hazard risk and assessing the (potential adverse) impacts of Disaster Risk Reduction measures across different hazards. She manages the Myriad-EU project and she co-leads the RiskKAN working group on early warning systems for systemic risk. Her PhD research focused on the temporal dynamics of disaster vulnerability. Before that, she obtained her MSc degree in Environmental and Resource Management from the University of British Columbia (Canada) where she looked at disaster vulnerability of coastal communities and their post-disaster recovery.
TREVOR GIRARD
Dr. Trevor Girard is a disaster resilience expert with a comprehensive background in architecture, project management, sustainability, and disaster risk reduction. Trevor is Chief Scientific Officer at Risklayer GmbH, where he develops and implements disaster resilience frameworks, standards and tools for enhancing urban resilience to natural hazards and climate change impacts. He is also a post-doctoral researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology. Trevor holds a Doctorate from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, where his research focused on communication of disaster warnings and humanitarian information. He has a MSc in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development from Northumbria University, UK, and a Bachelor of Architectural Science from Ryerson University, Canada.
COLIN RAYMOND
Colin Raymond is an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, with a secondary affiliation at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work centers on better understanding how weather systems interact with geographical features to produce regional weather extremes, with a particular focus on heat stress, compound events, and related potentially multiplicative societal risks. He co-leads the Risk KAN Compound Events working group and engages in regular communication and media activities.
markus Reichstein
Markus Reichstein is Director of the Biogeochemical Integration Department at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry and Professor for Global Geoecology at the University of Jena. Markus studied Ecology with Botany, Chemistry and Computer Science as minors and obtained his PhD in Plant Ecology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.He has been serving as lead author of the IPCC special report on Climate Extremes (SREX), as member of the German Commitee Future Earth on Sustainability Research, and the Thuringian Panel on Climate and as Chair of the Risk-KAN: Climate extremes and emergent risks (www.risk-kan.org)
Organisers
MYRIAD-EU
MYRIAD-EU is a H2020 project that aims to catalyse a paradigm shift in how risks are currently assessed and managed. Instead of addressing risks and hazards one by one, leading scientists from across Europe have co-developed the first harmonised framework for multi-hazard, multi-sector, and systemic risk management. Through its systemic and forward-looking approach, the project offers new ways to assess trade-offs and synergies between economic sectors, hazards and their scales. The MYRIAD-EU project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme call H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020 under grant agreement number 101003276.
Risk KAN
The Knowledge-Action Network (KAN) on Emergent Risks and Extreme Events serves as a comprehensive inter- and transdisciplinary hub for scientists, experts, and communities focusing on multi-hazard risks, disaster risk reduction, and governance of extreme events. As a Future Earth Global Research Network (GRN) and a joint initiative of the Future Earth, IRDR, WCRP, and WWRP programs, the Risk KAN actively promotes the exchange of information, knowledge, and data.
NatRiskChange
“Natural hazards and risks in a changing world (NatRiskChange)” aims to to pursue the development of methods to improve hazard and risk analysis and quantification based on the transient, non-stationary nature of hazards and risks in response to changing natural and anthropogenically altered components of the Earth system. Key scientific aims are the development, testing, and pilot application of studies on identification, quantification (mechanisms) and prediction of transient natural hazards and associated risks. NatRiskChange receives funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Contract: GRK 2043/2)
Sponsors
CLICCS
CLICCS (“Climate, Climatic Change, and Society”) is a Cluster of Excellence at the University of Hamburg. CLICCS has established a long-term program spanning the range from basic research on climate dynamics and climate-related social dynamics to the transdisciplinary exploration of human–environment interactions.
ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
WCRP
The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) coordinates research around some of the most pressing scientific questions in relation to the compounded nature of the climate system, to find answers together with all nations, looking at it from a multitude of disciplines.
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
The conference receives sponsorship from DG ECHO, a directorate within the European Commission. The Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network supports PhD candidates and early career researchers.
EUROPEAN UNION
The European Union is funding MYRIAD-EU project through HORIZON 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement 101003276
UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM
The University of Potsdam (UP) was founded in 1991 and has established itself as a top-thirty Young University in the world and the number one Young University in Germany (Times Higher Education ranking of universities less than 50 years old). Key elements of the university’s research-development strategy are four research focus areas, among them Earth and Environmental Systems (EES). The research focus area EES joins forces for a better understanding of hydrological phenomena and extremes and provides improved knowledge transfer to society.