Resilience: A Global Imperative for 21st Century Cities & Communities

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Lunch will be provided.

Please join the World Affairs Council and Northeastern University's College of Social Sciences and Humanities in welcoming Prof. Daniel Aldrich and Prof. Matthias Ruth for a conversation on developing alternative energy systems and the necessity of equipping urban centers with disaster preparedness measures. Tracy Morgenstern, Climate Protection Program Manager at the City of Seattle, and Corey Reynolds, Regional Project Manager of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, will provide practitioner responses to the Professors' respective presentations.

Pre-registration and networking begins at 11:00AM. The lunch program will take place from 11:30AM - 1:00PM. Please join us for networking and coffee following the program from 1:00PM-2:00PM.

The venue entrance is at the north end of the building on the corner of Terry Ave N. & Republican. Attendees are encouraged  to use public transportation when possible. Visitors will find numerous parking garages and street parking nearby. Two of the closest parking garages are: 321 Terry & 320 Westlake garages; both are accessed via the alley off of Harrison Street in between Westlake & Terry Ave North.

About the speakers:

Dr. Daniel P. Aldrich is Director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program and Professor in political science and public policy at Northeastern University. Aldrich has published four books (Site Fights (2008), Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery (2012), Resilience and Recovery in Asian Disasters (2014), and Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities (2015)), more than 35 peer-reviewed articles, and written op-eds for the New York Times, CNN, and many other media outlets. He has spent more than 5 years in India, Japan, and Africa carrying out fieldwork and his work has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, the Abe Foundation, and the Japan Foundation, among other institutions.

Dr. Matthias Ruth is Professor at the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University (NU), Boston. He serves as Director of the Policy School and the founding director of NU’s Resilient Cities Laboratory as well as the Urban Informatics program. Professor Ruth holds a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and a PhD in Geography from the University of Illinois, where he also received training in engineering and biology. After almost a decade a Boston University and more than a decade at the University of Maryland where he was the Roy F. Weston Chair in Natural Economics and Policy Advisor on Sustainability to the Chancellor, he joined Northeastern University in 2012. Professor Ruth has published 15 books and over 120 papers and book chapters in the scientific literature. He is a founder of Ecological Economics, serves on the boards of numerous journals and scientific organizations, is a founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Urban Climate, and collaborates extensively with scientists and policy makers worldwide.

About the respondents:

Tracy Morgenstern is the Climate Protection Program Manager for the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment (OSE).  She leads Seattle’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and is responsible for ensuring Seattle continues to develop innovative solutions to climate change. Her work also focuses on climate resilience, developing policies and strategies to foster equitable climate preparedness. Tracy was the principal author of the Seattle Climate Action Plan.

Corey Reynolds is a Regional Project Manager at the City and County of San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management, where he oversees and directs Department of Homeland Security-funded projects designed to improve the Bay Area’s resilience to terrorism and natural hazard threats. Prior to working for the City of San Francisco, Corey spent eight years in consulting, leading recovery, resilience, and redevelopment projects for Federal, state, and local governments. Corey’s clients included the U.S. Department of Commerce; the State of New Hampshire; Chatham County, Georgia; and Fort Worth, Texas. He holds a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Master of Public Policy degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, where he also conducted research and policy analysis for San Francisco’s Chief Resilience Officer.

This event is co-sponsored by Northeastern University's College of Social Sciences and Humanities