Measuring Community Resilience

Consensus

Download PDF

Paperback - $54.00
Ebook - $44.09

Request an exam or desk copy

The frequency and severity of disasters over the last few decades have presented unprecedented challenges for communities across the United States. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina exposed the complexity and breadth of a deadly combination of existing community stressors, aging infrastructure, and a powerful natural hazard. In many ways, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina was a turning point for understanding and managing disasters, as well as related plan making and policy formulation. It brought the phrase "community resilience" into the lexicon of disaster management.

Building and Measuring Community Resilience: Actions for Communities and the Gulf Research Program summarizes the existing portfolio of relevant or related resilience measurement efforts and notes gaps and challenges associated with them. It describes how some communities build and measure resilience and offers four key actions that communities could take to build and measure their resilience in order to address gaps identified in current community resilience measurement efforts. This report also provides recommendations to the Gulf Research Program to build and measure resilience in the Gulf of Mexico region.

Additional materials

Publication information

152 pages · 6 x 9 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-48972-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-48973-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/25383

Suggested citation

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Building and Measuring Community Resilience: Actions for Communities and the Gulf Research Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Import this citation to:

Thad W. Allen, USCG, Ret

Adm. Thad Allen is Executive Vice President in Booz Allen’s Departments of Justice and Homeland Security business in the civil market, leading the development of thought leadership and client engagement regarding the future direction of law enforcement and homeland security. He is known for his expertise in bringing together government and non-government entities to address major challenges in a “whole of government” approach designed to achieve a unity of effort. Allen completed his distinguished career in the U.S. Coast Guard as its 23rd Commandant. In 2010, President Barack Obama selected Mr. Allen to serve as the National Incident Commander for the unified response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Working closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; DHS; the Departments of Defense, Interior, Commerce, and Health and Human Services; state and local entities; and BP, he sought to bring a unity of effort to response operations. Prior to his assignment as Commandant, Allen served as Coast Guard Chief of Staff. During his tenure in that position, in 2005 he was designated Principal Federal Official for the U.S. government’s response and recovery operations in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita throughout the Gulf Coast region. Other Coast Guard assignments included Commander, Atlantic Area where in 2001 he led the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area forces following the September 11 attacks. He previously served as Commander, Seventh Coast Guard District, where he oversaw all operations in the southeastern United States and in the Caribbean. Prior to joining Booz Allen, Allen served with the Rand Corporation. He is a fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He also currently serves as a director on the Coast Guard Foundation and Partnership for Public Service. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed Allen to the New York State Respond Commission tasked with finding ways to ensure that New York State is ready to respond to future weather-related disasters. Allen is a 1971 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He holds a Master’s in Public Administration from The George Washington University from which he received the Alumni Achievement Award in 2006. He also holds an M.S. degree in management from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Allen has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from George Mason University, the National Defense University, and the National Graduate School.

Gerald E. Galloway, Jr.

Dr. Gerald E. Galloway, Jr. (NAE) is a Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, a Faculty Fellow of the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study and a visiting professor at the Galveston Campus. His 38-year career in the military included positions such as commander of the Army Corps of Engineers District in Vicksburg, Mississippi, member of the Mississippi River Commission, and professor and founding head of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and dean of the Academic Board at the U.S. Military Academy. A civil engineer, public administrator, and geographer, Dr. Galloway’s current research focuses on the development of U.S. national water policy and disaster resilience in general and national floodplain management policy and the potential impacts of climate change on national security in particular. He currently serves as a consultant to several federal and state and non-governmental agencies on water resources policy development and flood risk management including the Louisiana Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation, the Maryland Coast Smart Council, an international panel of experts examining the flooding threats to Florence, and a panel of experts advising on sea-level rise challenges Singapore. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, he was vice president of Geospatial Strategies for the ES3 Sector of the Titan Corporation. He was a six-year member of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and has served as chair or member of 13 National Research Council Committees. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Public Administration and the National Academy of Construction. After he retired from the Army in 1995 as a Brigadier General, Dr. Galloway earned his M.S.E. at Princeton, M.P.A. at Penn State (Capitol Campus) and his Ph.D. in geography (specializing in water resources) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michael Beck

Dr. Michael W. Beck is the lead marine scientist for The Nature Conservancy and an adjunct Professor in Ocean Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he is based. Beck works on coastal marine conservation in five continents across science, business, and policy to bring clear tools and results to decision-makers. He focuses on building coastal resilience in the interface between adaptation and conservation, working to reduce risks to people, property, and nature. Beck has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed science articles. His work covers topics from the role of coral reefs in reducing risks from storms to the effects of people on extinctions of Pleistocene mammals. He was a Fulbright Fellow and an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney. He has served on advisory boards and panels for NOAA, EPA and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2012, Beck was selected as a Pew Marine Conservation Fellow. His main areas of work include coastal hazards mitigation and climate adaptation in the U.S., Caribbean, and Micronesia; habitat restoration and oyster reefs at risk; marine spatial planning in the U.S. and internationally; restoration investments following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; and continued work on the nursery role of near-shore habitats such as kelp forests and on marine conservation agreements, including the lease and ownership of submerged lands. Beck has an MS in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia and a PhD in Biological Sciences from Florida State University.

Anita Chandra

Dr. Anita Chandra is director of RAND Justice, Infrastructure, and Environment (JIE). Prior to her position as JIE director, she served as director of RAND's Behavioral and Policy Sciences Department. She also leads studies on civic well-being and urban planning; community resilience and long-term disaster recovery; effects of military deployment; health in all policies; and child health and development. Throughout her career, Chandra has engaged government and nongovernmental partners to consider cross-sector solutions for improving community well-being and to build more robust systems and evaluation capacity. This work has taken many forms, including engaging with federal and local government agencies on building systems for emergency preparedness and resilience both in the U.S. and globally; partnering with private sector organizations to develop the science base around child systems; and collaborating with city governments and foundations to reform data systems and measure sustainability, well-being, and civic transformation. Chandra has also partnered with community organizations to conduct broad-scale health and environmental needs assessments, to examine the integration of health and human service systems, and to determine how to address the needs of historically vulnerable populations in human service systems. These projects have occurred in partnership with businesses, foundations, and other community organizations. Chandra earned a Dr.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Erin D. Coryell

Ms. Erin D. Coryell joined the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation in November of 2010 as Program Officer. Coryell is responsible for the development, strategic direction, and grant making of the Foundation’s domestic disaster program which is focused on the Midwest. Coryell manages a portfolio of grants that span the continuum of disaster preparedness through long-term recovery projects in a ten state region. Coryell’s background spans historic preservation, nonprofits, urban development, and social and cultural issues regarding land use. Prior to joining the foundation, Coryell worked in field operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ESF – 14 Long-Term Community Recovery program and was deployed for disaster declarations in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. She also was previously the Director of the Philadelphia Regional Fund, a grant program for community-serving historic houses of worship for a national nonprofit supported by foundation and government funding. She also has run her own preservation consulting business; successfully authored a New Market Tax Credit application for a faith-based organization in South Central Los Angeles; worked for a construction company on one of Seattle’s first Hope VI mixed-income housing project to use sustainable building practices; and worked for an urban developer on the restoration of a landmarked Nordstrom’s department store. Coryell graduated from Bard College with a B.A. in art history and from Cornell University’s City and Regional Planning Program with an M.A. in historic preservation planning.

Susan L. Cutter

Dr. Susan Cutter is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina where she directs the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute. Her primary research interests are in the area of disaster vulnerability/resilience science—what makes people and the places where they live vulnerable to extreme events and how vulnerability and resilience are measured, monitored, and assessed. She has authored or edited thirteen books, more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Dr. Cutter has led post-disaster field studies of the role of geographic information technologies in rescue and relief operations in (September 11th World Trade Center attack) and studies of evacuation behavior from Three Mile Island (1979), Hurricane Floyd (1999), and the Graniteville, SC train derailment and chlorine spill (2005). In 2006 she led a Hurricane Katrina post-event field team and ensuing five-year study to examine the long term recovery along the Mississippi Coast. In 2012, she led a Hurricane Sandy recovery team to examine the differential recovery along New Jersey’s coast. She has provided expert testimony to Congress on hazards and vulnerability, was a member of the US Army Corps of Engineers IPET team evaluating the social impacts of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System in response to Hurricane Katrina, and was a juror for the Rebuild by Design competition for Hurricane Sandy reconstruction. Her policy-relevant work focuses on emergency management and disaster recovery at local, state, national, and international levels, with funding from NSF, the US Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA, NASA, USGS, FEMA, DHS, South Carolina’s Emergency Management Division (EMD) and State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), and Florida’s Department of Health. Dr. Cutter serves on many national advisory boards and committees including those of National Research Council (NRC), the AAAS, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Natural Hazards Center, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She also served as Vice-Chair of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Science Committee supported by ISSC, ICSU, and UN-ISDR. Dr. Cutter serves as co-executive editor of Environment, associate editor of Weather, Climate, and Society, and on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Extreme Events. She also is serving as the Editor-in-Chief for the Oxford Research Encyclopedias Natural Hazard Science. She received her B.A. from California State University, East Bay and her M.A. and Ph.D. (1976) from the University of Chicago.

Ann-Margaret Esnard

Dr. Ann-Margaret Esnard is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Public Management and Policy at Georgia State University (GSU). She was hired in 2013 as part of the cluster on “Shaping the Future of Cities” during the third phase of the university’s Second Century Initiative. She served as the Chair of GSU’s Council for the Progress of Cities from 2014-2016. Her expertise encompasses urban planning, disaster planning, vulnerability assessment, and GIS/spatial analysis. She has been involved in a number of research initiatives including NSF-funded projects on topics of population displacement from catastrophic disasters, school recovery after disasters, long-term recovery, and community resilience. She is the coauthor of the 2014 book Displaced by Disasters: Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World, and co-editor of the 2017 book Coming Home after Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery. Esnard has served on a number of state and national committees including the Disasters Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council’s Committee on Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience, and the State of Florida Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning initiative. Esnard holds degrees in Agricultural Engineering (B.Sc., University of the West Indies-Trinidad), Agronomy and Soils (M.S., University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez), and Regional Planning (Ph.D., UMASS-Amherst). She also completed a two year post-doc at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Howard Frumkin

Dr. Howard Frumkin is Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, where he served as Dean from 2010 through 2016. Frumkin is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist, who has worked in academia and public service. From 2005 to 2010 he held leadership roles at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first as director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry NCEH/ATSDR), and later as Special Assistant to the CDC Director for Climate Change and Health. During his tenure at NCEH/ATSDR, he created programs in Climate Change and in Healthy Community Design; launched training programs for college students, doctoral students, and post-docs; expanded its Biomonitoring and Environmental Public Health Tracking programs; and launched its National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures. From 1990 to 2005, he was Professor and Chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Emory Medical School. Frumkin currently serves on the Boards of the Seattle Parks Foundation, the Bullitt Foundation, the Children and Nature Network, and the Washington Global Health Alliance, as Chair of the Wellcome Trust “Our Planet, Our Health” funding committee, and on Advisory Boards for the Partnership for Active Transportation, the Planetary Health Alliance, and the Center for Design and Health at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. He previously served on the National Boards of Directors of the U.S. Green Building Council and of Physicians for Social Responsibility; as president of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics; as chair of the Science Board of the American Public Health Association; on the American Institute of Architects Design and Health Leadership Group; on the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors; on the Board of the National Environmental Education Foundation; on the National Research Council Committee on Sustainability Linkages in the Federal Government, on the Washington Department of Ecology Toxics Reduction Strategy Group, on the Board of the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute, and on Seattle's Green Ribbon Commission. As a member of EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, he chaired the Smart Growth and Climate Change work groups. A graduate of the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership, he was named Environmental Professional of the Year by the Georgia Environmental Council in 2004. His research interests include public health aspects of the built environment, climate change, energy policy, and nature contact; toxic effects of chemicals; and environmental health policy. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific journal articles and chapters, and several books, including the standard environmental health textbook, Environmental Health: From Global to Local. He is Board-certified in Internal Medicine and in Environmental and Occupational Medicine, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Collegium Ramazzini, and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. Frumkin received his A.B. from Brown University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. from Harvard, his Internal Medicine training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Cambridge Hospital, and his Environmental and Occupational Medicine training at Harvard.

Melanie Gall

Dr. Melanie Gall is a faculty member of the Arizona State University (ASU) Emergency Management and Homeland Security program and the ASU School of Community Resources and Development. Prior to joining ASU, she worked as a researcher at the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina as well as in the Disaster Science and Management program at Louisiana State University. Gall's research combines a mixed-method approach to explore the impacts of extreme events on society. Her expertise lies in risk metrics (e.g., disaster losses, vulnerability indices), hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation planning as well as environmental modeling. The applied nature of Gall's work allows her to work closely with emergency management agencies and non-profit organizations. She has conducted post-disaster field work in Mozambique, Haiti, New Jersey, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Her publications appeared in journals such as Natural Hazards Review, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and Nature Climate Change. She is a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM) and received her geography degrees from the University of South Carolina (Ph.D.), University of Salzburg in Austria (M.S.), and University of Heidelberg in Germany (B.S.).

Maureen Lichtveld

Dr. Maureen Lichtveld has 35 years of experience in environmental public health and currently is Professor and Chair, Department of Global Environmental Health Sciences, Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Beginning in 1987, she served as one of the highest ranking Center’s for Disease Control and Prevention Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry environmental health scientists engaged in designing research tools and protocols guiding national environmental health studies in communities living near hazardous waste sites nationwide and science-driven policies, often accompanied by congressional testimonies. Her research focuses on environmentally-induced disease including asthma and cancer, health disparities, environmental health policy, disaster preparedness, and public health systems. She holds an endowed chair in environmental policy and is Associate Director, Population Sciences, Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium. Lichtveld has a track record in community-based participatory research with a special emphasis on persistent environmental health threats affecting health disparate communities living in disaster prone areas. Her $29M research portfolio encompasses both national and global environmental health research. As Director of the Center for Gulf Coast Environmental Health Research, Leadership, and Strategic Initiatives, Lichtveld serves as Principal Investigator of several Gulf Coast-associated environmental health research and capacity building projects ascertaining the potential impact of the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill. She was awarded the Caribbean Consortium for Research in Environmental and Occupational Health, a NIH-Fogarty International Center research grant with the research center at the Academic Hospital in Suriname and the University of Suriname, a first time NIH award in that Caribbean country. Since 1988, she has served as a consultant to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on complex research issues ranging from environmental health, technological disasters to public health systems research, and cancer policy. Of special note is her contribution as environmental health expert in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and since 2010 following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Lichtveld is a member of the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council of the Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the U.S. EPA Scientific Advisory Board; the National Academy of Sciences-Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine; and a member of the Health Disparities Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the CDC. She was elected as Chair of the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Public Health and serves as the current President of the Hispanic Serving Health Professions Schools. Lichtveld was honored as CDC’s Environmental Health Scientist of the Year and twice named Woman of the Year by the City of New Orleans. Lichveld earned her MD at the University of Suriname in 1981 and a MPH in Environmental Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health, in 1986.

Carlos Martin

Dr. Carlos Martín is a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute where he leads research and evaluations on the physical qualities of housing and communities and the industry that builds them. Martín, a trained architect and construction engineer, uses his technical training to connect the nuts and bolts of housing—technology, design, workers, and materials—to its social outcomes for residents and the cities in which they live. His areas of expertise include green housing policies, disaster mitigation, low-income housing quality, the construction workforce, and development regulations. He has experience with descriptive analysis, qualitative implementation studies, evaluation technical assistance, and experimental evaluations for public, nonprofit, and philanthropic clients in the United States and abroad. Recent work includes evaluations of HUD’s post-Sandy Rebuild by Design formation; the National Disaster Resilience Competition’s Resilience Academies; home rebuilding rates with Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery; and the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilience Cities. Publications from his past research projects include Housing Recovery on the Gulf Coast, Phase II and The State of the Residential Construction Industry. Before joining the Urban Institute, Martín was assistant staff vice president at the National Association of Home Builders for Construction Codes and Standards, SRP Professor for Energy and the Environment at Arizona State University's Del E. Webb School of Construction and School of Architecture, and coordinator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing. Martín received his BSAD in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his MS and PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University.

Chris D. Poland

Mr. Chris Poland is an internationally recognized authority on earthquake engineering and champion of disaster resilience. His passion for vibrant, sustainable, and healthy communities drives his consulting practice. He focuses on community resilience and the buildings and systems that contribute to it. Poland is currently a Community Resilience Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and member of the NIST Community Resilience Panel. Poland is the past Chair of the Advisory Committee to the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, and current Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Structural Safety of Department of Veterans Affairs Facilities. As Chair of the 100th Anniversary Earthquake Conference in San Francisco in April 2006, he shared the stage with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein in an internationally covered event that brought the nation to think proactively about earthquake danger. He served as the Chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings Standards Committee completing both ASCE 31 and ASCE 41, standards for the evaluation and rehabilitation of existing buildings that are used worldwide. Poland served on the Board of Directors for SPUR, co-chaired their Resilient City Initiative, and led the publication of “The Disaster Resilient City.” He serves on the Board of the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute, has a leadership position in the ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division, and is a member of the Board of the US Resiliency Council. He served on the Board for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and was the co-chair of the San Francisco Lifelines Council with City Administrator Naomi Kelly. Poland was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2009. He received EERI’s Alquist Award in 2006 and the Housner Medal in 2017. He is a Fellow of the American Council of Engineering Companies and the American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Engineering Institute. He is an honorary member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the Structural Engineers Association of California. His structural engineering career spans 40+ years and includes new design work, seismic analysis and strengthening of existing buildings, structural failure analysis, and historic preservation. Until his retirement, he was a Senior Principal, Chairman and CEO of Degenkolb Engineers during his 40 years with the firm from 1974 through 2014. Poland received his M.S. in structural engineering from Stanford University.

Liesel A. Ritchie

Dr. Liesel Ritchie is Associate Director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder and a research professor with joint appointments in CU Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science and Environmental Studies Program. During her career, Ritchie has studied a range of disaster events, including the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills; the Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash release; Hurricane Katrina; and earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand. Since 2000, her focus has been on the social impacts of disasters and community resilience, with an emphasis on technological disasters, social capital, and renewable resource communities, and she has published widely on these topics. Ritchie has more than 20 years of experience in evaluation and research. Prior to joining CU, she was a Senior Research Associate at the Evaluation Center (Western Michigan University) and served for six years as Coordinator for the Social Science Research Center's Evaluation & Decision Support Laboratory (Mississippi State University). Ritchie has served as PI or co-PI on more than 80 projects and authored or coauthored more than 70 technical reports working with agencies including NASA, NSF, U.S. Department of Education, USGS, FEMA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, NOAA, and U.S. Department of the Interior. She has also conducted evaluations for state departments of health. Ritchie is a National Institute of Standards and Technology Disaster Resilience Fellow and currently serves as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Program Advisory Board. She earned her B.A. in History, Summa Cum Laude, in 1989; her M.A. in History in 1994; and her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2004 (Dissertation Title: “Voices of Cordova: Social Capital in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.”), all from Mississippi State University.

Kathryn D. Sullivan, PhD

Dr. Kathryn Sullivan was the Smithsonian’s Lindbergh Fellowship in Aerospace History in January, 2017. Prior to this award, she served from 2013-2017 as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator. She is a distinguished scientist, renowned astronaut, and intrepid explorer. Prior to her service as Under Secretary and NOAA Administrator, Sullivan held the position of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction and Deputy Administrator, and also performed the duties of NOAA's Chief Scientist, a vacant position. As Assistant Secretary, Sullivan played a central role in directing Administration and NOAA priority work in the areas of weather and water services, climate science and services, integrated mapping services, and Earth-observing capabilities. She also provided agency-wide direction with regard to satellites, space weather, water, and ocean observations and forecasts to best serve American communities and businesses. As Deputy Administrator, she oversaw the smooth operation of the agency. Sullivan is the U.S. Co-chair of the Group on Earth Observations, an intergovernmental body that is building a Global Earth Observation System of Systems to provide environmental intelligence relevant to societal needs. Sullivan’s impressive expertise spans the frontiers of space and sea. An accomplished oceanographer, she was appointed NOAA’s Chief Scientist in 1993, where she oversaw a research and technology portfolio that included fisheries biology, climate change, satellite instrumentation and marine biodiversity. She was the inaugural Director of the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy in the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University. Prior to joining Ohio State, she served a decade as President and CEO of the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio, one of the nation's leading science museums. Sullivan joined COSI after three years of service as Chief Scientist. She was one of the first six women selected to join the NASA astronaut corps in 1978 and holds the distinction of being the first American woman to walk in space. She flew on three shuttle missions during her 15-year tenure, including the mission that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. In February 2016, Sullivan was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She was also named a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the nation’s premier scientific and professional organization promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic services. Sullivan has also served on the National Science Board (2004-2010) and as an oceanographer in the U.S. Navy Reserve (1988-2006). She holds a bachelor's degree in earth sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a doctorate in geology from Dalhousie University in Canada.

Lauren Alexander Augustine

Dr. Lauren Alexander Augustine is the Director of the Program on Risk, Resilience, and Extreme Events in the Office of Special Projects in the Division of Policy and Global Affairs, and she serves as the Associate Executive Director of the Division of Earth and Life Studies. In this role, she directs the Resilient America Roundtable and the International Forum on CBRN Resilience. She also is the staff lead for the cross-Academies Resilience Working Group. She serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Risk and Resilience, and she is a member of the Advisory Board for the American Geophysical Union’s Thriving Earth Exchange program. Dr. Augustine joined the Academies in 2002. In her tenure at the Academies, Dr. Augustine was a study director on the Water Science and Technology Board; from 2007-2014, she served as the Country Director for the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI), a cross-academies program that builds scientific capacity in national academies of science in eight African countries. From 2008-2013, she directed the Disasters Roundtable. Her most recent positions entail her developing a portfolio on natural disasters and ways that science can inform policy to reduce the risk and elevate society’s resilience to them. Dr. Augustine earned her B.S. in applied mathematics and systems engineering and her Master’s degree in environmental planning and policy from the University of Virginia; she completed her Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program that combined hydrology, geomorphology, and landscape ecology from Harvard University.

Log In

Sign in to access your saved publications, downloads, and email preferences.

Former MyNAP users: You'll need to reset your password on your first login to MyAcademies. Click "Forgot password" below to receive a reset link via email. Having trouble? Visit our FAQ page to contact support.

Members of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, or National Academy of Medicine should log in through their respective Academy portals.

Email (required)
Password (required)

Don't have an account?

Register

Email (required)
New password (required)
Retype password (required) Password must be at least 8 characters
I accept the terms of use
terms of use

Thank You

Thank you for creating a MyAcademies account!

Enjoy free access to thousands of National Academies' publications, a 10% discount off every purchase, and build your personal library.

Forgot Password

Enter the email address for your MyAcademies (formerly MyNAP) account to receive password reset instructions.

Reset Requested

We sent password reset instructions to your email . Follow the link in that email to create a new password. Didn't receive it? Check your spam folder or contact us for assistance.

Reset Password

New password (required)
Retype password (required) Password must be at least 8 characters

Reset Password

Your password has been reset.

Log In

Verify email

Verify Your Email Address

We sent a verification link to your email. Please check your inbox (and spam folder) and follow the link to verify your email address. If you did not receive the email, you can request a new verification link below

Subscribe

First Name
Last Name
Email (required)
I agree to receive emails from the National Academies (required)

We respect your privacy and will never share your information.

Measuring Community Resilience

Featured publication

Description

Collaborators

Committee

Sponsors

Staff

Parent projects

Science and Technology for Resilience

Major units and sub-units

Contact

Contact us

Provide feedback

Request materials

More like this

Review of the draft United by Nature assessment

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Health Care Financing to Improve Availability of Affordable Contraception: Identifying Promising Practices

Review of the draft United by Nature assessment

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Transportation Research Board Executive Office

Adaptive Capacities for Transformation (ACT) Initiative: Houston

Adaptive Capacities for Transformation (ACT) Initiative: Mobile

Adaptive Capacities for Transformation (ACT) Initiative: New Orleans

Additional materials

Publication information

Suggested citation

My Academies

Measuring Community Resilience

Dropdown items

Featured publication

Building and Measuring Community Resilience: Actions for Communities and the Gulf Research Program

Description

Collaborators

Committee

Sponsors

Staff

Parent projects

Science and Technology for Resilience

Major units and sub-units

Contact

Contact us

Provide feedback

Request materials

More like this

Review of the draft United by Nature assessment

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Health Care Financing to Improve Availability of Affordable Contraception: Identifying Promising Practices

Review of the draft United by Nature assessment

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Transportation Research Board Executive Office

Adaptive Capacities for Transformation (ACT) Initiative: Houston

Adaptive Capacities for Transformation (ACT) Initiative: Mobile

Adaptive Capacities for Transformation (ACT) Initiative: New Orleans