Susan L. Cutter, Past President of the Association of American Geographers, to Discuss ”American Hazardscapes: The Regionalization of Hazards and Disasters”
posted 11/1/01 3:OO PM EST

 Susan L. Cutter, Carolina Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina and the immediate past President of the Association of American Geographers, will speak at Columbia on November 8, 2001 as part of the Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series of the Center for Hazards and Risk Research (CHRR). The seminar, co-sponsored by the CHRR and CIESIN, the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, will be held in the Jed D. Satow Room on the fifth floor of Lerner Hall on the Columbia Morningside Heights campus from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Dr. Cutter will address the topic of her forthcoming book, American Hazardscapes: The Regionalization of Hazards and Disasters, to be released in 2001 by the Joseph Henry/ National Academy Press. American Hazardscapes is an edited volume based on the Second National Assessment on Natural and Related Technological Hazards and Disasters. The book chronicles the increasing hazard vulnerability and the pattern and frequency of disaster events and losses in the United States during the last thirty years.

Dr. Cutter served as chair of the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina from 1993 to 2000. She currently directs the Hazards Research Lab, a research and training center that integrates geographical information processing techniques with hazards analysis and management. Dr. Cutter is the co-founding editor of the journal, Environmental Hazards, and has authored seven books and more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.

Dr. Cutter was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1999 and served as President of the Association of American Geographers in 1999-2000. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Natural Hazards Center in Boulder, Colorado and the Heinz Center Panel on Social Causes and Consequences of Coastal Hazards. She is also a long-standing member of the User Working Group of CIESIN’s NASA-funded Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC).

Dr. Howard Kunreuther, CHRR Visiting Scholar in 2000-2001 and Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Public Policy and Management of the Wharton School, will participate in the seminar as a discussant. Dr. Kunreuther co-edited another volume stemming from the 2nd Assessment and is co-director of Wharton’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center.

Lerner Hall is located at 2920 Broadway between West 114th and West 115th Sts. The seminar is open to the public, but attendees without current Columbia University IDs must contact J. Mulvey at 845-365-8952 or jmulvey@ciesin.columbia.edu by November 7. Drinks and dessert will be served.