People - Students

 

Frederico Ferreira; PhD Student

Frederico has a Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering (2003) from Catholic University of Goiás and a Master's Degree in Transportation from University of Brasília. He has worked as a consultant in projects for the Brazilian Federal Government and as a construction manager.    

Research Objectives:

New Zealand’s State Highway Organisations (SHOs) need to work and make decisions in a coordinated and efficient manner to minimize disruptions during emergency events. Frederico’s objective is to develop a Dynamic Response Recovery Tool (DRRT) to support decision making activities during emergency response events in New Zealand. DRRT will improve SHOs allocation of both personnel and physical resources during emergency response and recovery operations by identifying major components involved in the decision making process. His main research questions will be:

  • How to assess State Highway Organisations decision making during emergency events?
  • What are the key components of the decision making within State Highway Organisations in New Zealand?
  • How emergency management can be improved using available information technology systems?
  • What kind of specific system can support decision making during emergency events?
  • How to assess DRRT’s efficiency and effectiveness for SHOs' applications?

 

James Olabode B. Rotimi; PhD student

James holds a H.N.D. Building; B.Sc. Building; M.Sc. Construction Management; and a PG Certificate in Commerce. He is also a professional member of the Nigerian Institute of Building and the Institute of Management Consultants. James has various construction related experience including associate role in a quantity-surveying consultancy practice. His most recent position was Lecturer in the Department of Building, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria – Nigeria.

 

Research Objectives

James research objective is to ascertain the workability of existing disaster management strategies; and analyse the provisions of the various building acts and legislation to determine if they are in tandem with the likely demands for recovery in the event of major natural disasters in New Zealand.
The evaluative study will include the planning activities of personnel involved in the implementation of the CDEM strategies and other related agencies.
His main research questions will be:

  • Are the existing recovery and reconstruction framework adequate to meet the needs of New Zealand communities in the event of a major natural disaster?
  • Have there been implementation problems in the CDEM strategy in previous natural disasters? If so, what aspect(s) can be improved upon that will contribute to the short to long-term stakeholder objectives of recovery and reconstruction?
  • Can other international disaster management strategies be relevant benchmarks in the development of best practice for recovery in New Zealand?

 

Amy Stephenson ; PhD Student

Amy has a BSc (Hons) in Development and Health in Disaster Management from Coventry University in the UK. During this degree she undertook a placement year and was involved in managing the response to the Buncefield Oil Depot explosion and fire. In 2007 she moved to New Zealand to pursue her Ph.D. studies. Now within the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Canterbury, Amy’s current research focuses on measuring and benchmarking the resilience of organisations. This involves quantitatively testing existing theory and using structural equation modelling to explore and map the relationships between the variables and factors of organisational resilience.

 

Kelvin Xi Zuo; PhD Student

Kelvin has a Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering Management (2003) from Sichuan University in China and a Master (Hons) of Engineering Studies (2005) from University of Auckland. He is particularly interested in the contractual aspect of civil engineering management, especially the procurement process in different projects. It is first stems from his fieldwork (2002) in Three Gorge Dam in China and further developed in his master thesis of tendering systems comparison between Chinese and New Zealand models.

Research Objectives

The objective of Kelvin's research is to establish a comprehensive procurement framework and programme management plan for reconstruction after a natural disaster. His principle research questions are:

  • What are the common construction contracts used in New Zealand industry? Are they still useful in the aftermath of a natural disaster? if not, what are the main impediments and how could they be improved?
  • What are the existing government regulations (including those from CDEM) on procurement and their relevance and usefulness in a disaster reconstruction situation.
  • What are the recent developments in forms of the major international construction contracts (e.g. FIDIC)? How the contracts for rebuild have been set up and what are the procurement systems have been used in reconstruction in other vulnerable zones in the world? Are these international experiences useful to New Zealand, if yes, how can they be/ have been modified to suit New Zealand conditions.

 

Dharmista Gohil; Master's Student - Completed

The objective of Dharmista’s research was to develop an information framework prototype for roading organization’s response to disasters. In particular, her study concentrated on the roles and activities of the roading organizations in New Zealand (Transit New Zealand, Contractors and Consultants) responsible for the construction and maintenance of State Highways and their response during disasters. The study focused on the communication between these organizations during a disaster situation to develop a prototype for the roading organization’s response during this situation. The principle research questions of her study were:

  • What is the response process to a disaster by roading organisations in New Zealand?
  • What is the information need of an organization to respond towards road infrastructure in a disaster?
  • How do these roading organizations share information?
  • What is the information framework that can improve the response (reduce cost and time) to disasters for roading organizations?

 

Sonia McManus ; PhD Student - Completed

Sonia's research involved 10 organisations from a range of industry sectors, sizes, localities and types within the New Zealand context to discover what are the common issues that foster or create barriers to increased resilience. Organisational resilience is defined in this study as a function of the overall situation awareness, keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity of an organisation in a complex, dynamic and interrelated environment. A multiple case-study method has been used, and a facilitated 5-Step process for assessing and increasing resilience has been developed in conjunction with these organisations. Data was collected in the form of interviews, survey and participant observations in workshop environments. A set of 15 resilience indicators have been identified, and the organisations have been ranked according to their overall resilience relative to the other organisations in this study.
Future work is likely to include further quantification of the methodology and the resilience indicators,
resilience maturity models and work on understanding resilient leadership, communication of resilience concepts and international case studies to further determine the range of resilience for organisations.