Agenda

Chair of the IFIP WG5.15 on IT in DRR

Professor Emeritus, Iwate Prefectural University, Japan

Researcher, Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, Tsuda University, Japan

She had Ph.D. from University of London (attended Dept. of Computer Science, University College London). Her research interests include networking, security, the sense of security, trust and disaster informatics as well as inclusive issues.

Frederick BENABEN is Professor at the Industrial Engineering Center of IMT Mines Albi (15 faculties, 5 engineers and assistants, 30 PhD and Post-Doc. fellows).

He is since 2019 the head of the Safety and Crisis Management Lab of the Industrial Engineering Center of IMT Mines Albi (around 20 researchers including professors, assistant/associate-professors, engineers, PhD and Post-Doc students).

He is also since 2019 the co-director (with Prof. Benoit Montreuil) of the Associated International Lab SIReN (Sentient Immersive Response Networks Lab) between IMT Mines Albi and Georgia Tech.

Jochen serves as a Full Professor with tenure in the Information School at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. From the University of Albany, NY/SUNY he earned a Ph.D. in Information Science. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from the GSBA Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests are focused on disaster information management, smart governance/government, and information artifact evaluation.

Kenny Meesters (@k_meesters) is a researcher in information management at Tilburg University (NL), formerly employed at Delft University (NL) & University of Agder (NO). He focuses on information management in an operational setting in crisis response and disaster management. He has done various field studies in the aftermath of large disasters, and is also a member of various response mechanisms including the European Civil Protection Mechanism. In the early stages of the Corona pandemic Kenny was active in the  National Operational Team Corona (LOT-C) as information manager. This coordinating body was introduced to support the various Safety Regions and other critical partners in the Netherlands. In addition to his IMO role, he also brought along three students to support the research during the response. Read about their experience: https://edu.nl/epabn

Caroline Rizza is Associate Professor in Information and Communication Sciences in the Economic and Social Sciences Department (UMR 9217) at Telecom Paris. She is the president of the ISCRAM Community (Information System for Crisis Response and Management International Community), and presently contributing for the French Ministry of Ecological Transition and Solidarity to the mission of modernization of risk culture in France with the (2020-2021).
Her research in crisis management focuses on the digital competences of actors in emergency situations, and on the associated ethical, legal and social issues: how citizen initiatives or actions, promoted by ICT, are changing the relationships between public and private institutions and citizens, and what attention needs to be paid to them. She coordinates multidisciplinary researches and training projects involving institutional partners: for instance, the "Combining digital tools and Living Lab for promoting a First Aid Citizen" project (2021-2023); the project MACIV "Management of Citizens and Volunteers: social media in crisis situation" (2018-2021), or the multidisciplinary CNRS Thematic School "Online social networks - crisis management".

Professor Dr. Dimiter Velev is with the Department of Information Technologies and Communications and the Director of the Science Research Center for Disaster Risk Reduction at the University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria. Prof. Velev’s main areas of academic and R&D interest are Information Technology, ITC Application in Disaster Risk Reduction, Applied Artificial Intelligence and XR. He has published more than 200 ICT-related papers.