Lead Researchers
Erica
Seville: Research Programme and Objective 1 Lead
erica.seville@canterbury.ac.nz,
Phone: +64 3 364 2232
Erica is a research fellow with the Department of Civil
Engineering at the University of Canterbury, and also directior of Risk
Strategies Research and Consulting.
Erica has a Bachelor of Engineering Honours degree
and a Ph.D. in risk assessment. After completing her Ph.D. Erica spent
four years in the UK where she worked as a risk management consultant,
providing advice for leading public and private sector clients, including
London Underground Ltd, Railtrack, the UK Ministry of Defence, National
Audit Office, Defence Procurement Agency, and Shell Gas Trading. Erica
also worked with JP Morgan Chase in London managing operational risks
during the trade settlement process.
Erica’s interest in this research project sparked
from her experience working at JP Morgan Chase during the September
11th terrorist attacks, where the closure of their NY office saw the
implementation of well rehearsed business continuity plans. In the
banking sector, there are very clear drivers for business continuity
investment given the substantial capital at risk from an inability
to trade. Upon return to New Zealand, Erica recognised that most NZ
organisations are not so well prepared for major disruption! Given
that many of these organisations manage, maintain and operate our critical
infrastructure, provide employment for communities, and make up the
economy, there is a need for them to be resilient.
andre.dantas@canterbury.ac.nz,
Phone: +64 3 364 2238
Dr Andre Dantas is a Lecturer in Transportation Engineering
in the Department of Civil Engineering Department, University of Canterbury
where he teaches both undergraduate (Traffic Planning, GIS) and postgraduate
courses (Transportation Planning and Modelling and Traffic Management).
In 2002, Andre received his PhD from the Nagoya Institute
of Technology, Nagoya, Japan. Prior to that he was a GIS instructor
at the University of Brasilia and a traffic engineer and transportation
planner in different parts of Brazil. Andre also has a Bachelor in
Civil Engineering (1995) from the Federal University of Minas Gerais
in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and a Master in Urban Transportation (1998)
from the University of Brasilia.
During his four-year life-changing experience in Japan,
Andre had the chance to understand the magnitude and damages of natural
hazard events such as an earthquake. Andre became particularly interested
in the logistics of response activities after a disaster and he initiated
contacts with researchers of the Disaster, Prevention and Reduction
Institute (DPRI) of the University of Kyoto. Upon his arrival in New
Zealand, Andre has recognised the need for the development of dynamic
optimisation of response resources in order to minimize damage and
societal impacts.
s.wilkinson@auckland.ac.nz,
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 88184
Dr. Suzanne Wilkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Construction
Management at the University of Auckland. Her research interests focus
on construction contract administration and relationship management
for construction projects.
Suzanne completed Bachelors in Civil Engineering (Honours) and a PhD
in Construction Management from Oxford Brookes University, UK. She
is currently completing a Graduate Diploma in Business Studies at Massey
University focussing on dispute resolution.
Suzanne has published widely. Her recent research book, co-authored
with Rosemary Scofield, “Management for the New Zealand Construction
Industry” published by Prentice Hall has been adopted as a training
text at Universities and construction companies in New Zealand.
Suzanne lectures both undergraduates and post-graduate
students in project management, construction management, construction
law and construction administration.
David is a director of Kestrel Group Ltd, a consulting
practice specialising in risk and emergency management planning. He
is the National Engineering Lifelines Co-ordinator, a member of the
National Urban Search and Rescue Steering Committee and is a Past-President
of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering.
First-hand observations of the impacts of a number
of significant events including the Kobe and Taiwan earthquakes have
generated a passion for improving Civil Defence Emergency Management
planning in New Zealand. Last year, he was a member of the Government’s
Flood Review Team which made a number of recommendations to improve
response arrangements in New Zealand.
David believes that many organisations in New Zealand
have significant vulnerabilities in terms of both internal and external
linkages, with inadequate commitment to planning for operational continuity
in the event of major disruptions.
Jason is Senior Lecturer in Construction Management
in the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Canterbury. His
research focuses on techniques for the integration of construction
processes and teams. In New Zealand Jason has been working with
industry and project owners to facilitate the wider adoption of collaborative
relationships for the procurement and delivery of construction services.
Jason previously worked in the UK construction industry,
mainly as a geotechnical engineer and carried out research for his
PhD to develop systems to support the collaborative observational method
design process.
Jason’s interest in post-disaster reconstruction
stems from insights he gained from case studies into construction project
failures, which demonstrated the need for integrated construction processes
and teams to be more widely recognised, not just as a ‘best-way-out’ solution
following a disaster, but rather as an ab-initio means of reducing
the likelihood and consequences of a disaster.
Dr Dean Myburgh
Dean is a Director of 80-20 Options NZ Limited and Emergency Planning Limited, consultingpractices that specialise in risk- and emergency management planning. He has held senior management positions in both the private and public sectors and consulted (internally and externally) to organisations in New Zealand and South Africa. Dean is a Fellow of the NZ Institute of Management and holds an MBA and Doctorate in Industrial Relations.
For a number of years (mid-1996 until March 2006), Dean was involved regionally in projects related to the formation and operation of Auckland Civil Defence Emergency Management Group (ACDEMG). As a member of the ACDEMG Co-ordinating Executive Group, he sponsored a number of regional initiatives including the Recovery portfolio and has been involved in a number of exercises at a local, regional and national level that focus on response and recovery.
Dean’s consulting focus addresses organisations’ readiness and reduction as part of their capacity and capability to pro-actively deal with crises, emergencies and disasters. His interest in and focus on resilience examines the contextual frameworks, processes, systems and competencies required by organisations to meaningfully address resilience gaps.
Regan is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture,
Unitec, Auckland. However, during the semester breaks he is on standby
as a RedR Engineer (refer to www.redr.org)
often being assigned to the United Nations in various disaster situations
throughout the world. In the last 7 years has worked in Aceh (following
the 2004 tsunami disaster), Pakistan (following the Afghanistan conflict
and again for the 2005 earthquake), Syria (at the time of the Iraq
conflict), West Timor (at the establishment of a separate Timor), West
Darfur (at the initial onset of internal conflict) and Geneva (with
UNHCR). In all, 16 such overseas assignments. Thus, he brings real
world experience and a “sense” of disasters (both natural
and man made, emergency and post disaster reconstruction) to the team.
Regan has a Bachelor and a Master's Degree in civil engineering from
Canterbury University, a Master in Architecture from Victoria University,
and a Master in Business Administration and a PhD in Architectural
Engineering from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. Despite
this academic background, his professional experience has been as a
consulting structural engineer of 25+ years experience gained in 13
different countries.
His research interests deal with both the qualitative and quantitative aspects
of disasters under the general headings of: Management ~ Mitigation ~ Indicators
And his interest in resilient organizations is to apply
the often difficult lessons learnt overseas, to the social and economic
landscape of New Zealand.
John is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems, founder
of the e-Commerce programme and Co-Founder of the eSecurity Lab at
the University of Canterbury. His interests focus on the conjunction
of business practice and technology application with an emphasis on
building resilience in the face of systemic insecurity. John was a
practicing Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the US prior to coming
to New Zealand and has been involved in the computing industry for
over 30 years. His research interests are in information security,
risk management, e-commerce and strategic planning.
John’s broad background in business and technology
has involved dealing with the wide range of risks inherent in commercial
organisations and their use of computing and communications technology.
John’s interest in organisational resilience
is the result of his long background in accounting, auditing and business
information systems in conjunction with his role as co-founder of the
eSecurity Lab at the University of Canterbury. John lectures in both
undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Information Security and
eCommerce and has particular concern for the methodologies involved
in protecting modern connected information systems against the broad
range of systemic vulnerabilities.
Dr. Sonia Giovinazzi
Sonia is a Research Engineer in the Department of Civil Engineering
at the University of Canterbury working under the Resilient Organisation
Research Programme
Sonia received her Laurea degree (equivalent to a BS+ME with thesis)
in Civil Engineering (Geotechnical) at the University of Genoa and
a Ph.D. in Risk Management of Natural and Man Induced Hazards at the
Technical University of Braunschweing, Germany, and University of Florence,
Italy (joined doctoral program). After completing the PhD, she was
appointed as Fixed-term Lecturer at the Department of Structural and
Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Genoa, Italy, co-lecturing
a 5th year undergraduate course on Seismic Risk Management.
Sonia’s main research interests are comprised of: 1) natural
and man-induced hazard risk analysis, including vulnerability analysis,
damage scenario and risk modelling at territorial scale and within
GIS-based environment; 2) risk reduction including mitigation strategies,
emergency management and resilience enhancement; 3) extreme events
decision making; 4) seismic behaviour and strengthening of existing
masonry and monumental buildings.
Sonia has worked on these topics either as a research assistant, for
national and international multi-task projects, as well as an external
consultant for local government authorities and for private companies.
Sonia is collaborating in the development of a Dynamic Geographical
Information System (DGIS) that will help New Zealand’s
State Highway Organisations (SHOs) to collect, collate and communicate
data and information for the deployment of physical and human resources
during emergency event response and recovery. In the framework of this
research, a main objective is to identify and to analyse the strengths
and weaknesses of SHO’s current decision making and priority
setting for emergency events. Specific objectives will be to define
metrics to assess the likelihood of quality decisions being made during
an emergency and to develop training techniques and tools to help to
build the skills and experience needed to promote more effective decision
making during emergencies.
Andre
Dantas
