Our Network consists of members from many disciplines across RMIT and connects researchers to enhance, promote and deploy the University’s interdisciplinary research capability in disaster related fields.
Prof Babak Abbasi
Babak's research focuses on industry-motivated quantitative modelling and decision making under uncertainty applied to health care delivery improvement, supply chain coordination, and emergency resilience. He has worked with several industry partners including Australian Red Cross Blood Life, The City of Melbourne, and Geoscience Australia, and The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.
Prof Esther Charlesworth
Esther specialises in design strategies for reducing disaster risk and successful recovery and reconstruction. She has conducted development, peace-making and disaster related research in Australia, the Pacific, SE Asia, Japan, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, Bosnia, Germany, Ireland, Haiti, and USA. She is the Founding Director of Architects Without Frontiers for which she was awarded an Order of Australia in 2021. Prof. Charlesworth has been an ARC Future Fellow and is the author of numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters as well as eight books.
Prof Prem Chhetri
Prem is Director of Global Supply Chain and Logistics (GSCL) Research Priority Area. Prem is a GIS analyst with a strong interest in spatially integrated emergency logistics, urban infrastructure, transport and logistics planning and management of geographic information. Prem has received several Australian Research Council and federal and state government grants to study quality of urban life, spatial labour markets, urban fire and emergency planning, logistics clusters, innovation and growth, and climate change and port logistics.
Prof Vanessa Cooper
Vanessa’s research in information systems examines the impact of technology in complex contexts such as environmental sustainability, emergency management and the future of work. Vanessa has applied an analytical approach to connect information systems and knowledge management to a cross-disciplinary research program in emergency management. This body of work has resulted in a series of research publications for the Bushfire CRC, Emergency Management Victoria, and Country Fire Authority.
Dr Marco de Sisto
Marco’s research interests concern the implementation of HR principles within the decision-making in unstable or extreme environments. Marco was also recognised by the Australian government as an international “Distinguished Talent” in the field of emergency management. Since 2015, Marco has worked with the emergency departments of several Victorian local councils such as Cardinia Shire and Mornington Peninsula to develop effective communities’ resilience frameworks and better community engagement strategies.
Dr Amy Griffin
Amy is a geographer with expertise in how people read maps and understand spatial information. Her research has spanned a range of hazards (bushfire, cyclones, floods) and a range of stages of emergency management (preparation, response, mitigation) to contribute new knowledge of how to understand and model risk, vulnerability, and resilience in Australia and South Asia. She has recent experience with a NHRA-funded project that is developing and testing map-driven communication that will assist householders to take appropriate protective actions in the event of bushfires.
Prof Usha Iyer-Raniga
Usha has contributed to national and international programmes on energy efficiency and sustainability in the built environment such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Building and Construction Authority (Singapore). She is co-lead of the UN’s Sustainable Buildings and Construction programme. Through this initiative, major sustainable construction activities have been funded in countries such as India, Kenya and Nicaragua.
Dr Erica Kuligowski
Erica’s expertise is in response behaviour of people under imminent threat, emergency communications, and evacuation modelling. Erica worked for 18 years in the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology researching evacuation and sheltering behaviour and emergency communications in disasters. Erica’s work has led to the development of new or improved building codes and community standards, decision-making tools for disaster response, and emergency alert/warning creation tools and templates.
Dr Lucy Lunevich
Lucy is the author of “Disaster and Emergency Planning for Preparedness, Response, and Recovery: Promoting Resilient Infrastructure and Community”. This book addresses key elements of emergency planning, including regulatory requirements and how to recover from resulting emergencies and build on resilience of community and develop new standards for infrastructure. Dr Lunevich’s research aims to fundamentally shift the emergency management concepts from a traditional focus on vulnerability to a focus on resilience.
Prof Darryn McEvoy
Darryn's expertise covers climate risk assessment and adaptation, innovative adaptation practice (both institutions and technologies), institutional adaptive management (and adaptation as a process), vulnerability assessment, the building of local adaptive capacity, and the synergies and conflicts between the adaptation and mitigation agendas. Of particular interest is the translation of theory into practice and highlighting the implications for climate risk management and decision-making (including both public and private actors).
Dr Mittul Vahanvati
Mittul's research focusses on the long-term outcomes of housing recovery projects on social/ community resilience. She upholds housing as a human right, with enhanced resilience, which is embedded in a complex social system (including capacities), power dynamics between policymakers, and ecological system. Her research aims to build capacities of individuals, professionals, and policy maker to make risk-informed decisions for disaster resilience. Her research employs co-design, knowledge co-production and owner-driven approaches. She engages with UN-bodies, including UN-Habitat, UNEP, UNFCCC, national and local government, for her applied research, in the context of India, Australia and the Pacific.
Prof Sujeeva Setunge
Sujeeva is a professor in Civil Engineering and leads the research portfolio of stem college at RMIT as Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor (ADVC) for research and Innovation. Her research interests focus on disaster resilience and sustainability of buildings and infrastructure and innovative and sustainable construction materials. The asset management system developed by her team entitled CAMS is currently being used by several organisations.
Dr Shahrooz Shahparvari
Shahrooz is a lecturer in Supply Chain and Logistics at RMIT University. He has published in the top tier transportation journals including OMEGA, Transportation research part A, part D, Part E and Australasian Journal of Information System, Computers and Operations Research, and various others. His research interests include stochastic modelling, mathematical modelling, decision support systems, and statistical analysis in the disaster environment.
A/Prof Nirajan Shiwakoti
Nirajan has significant research experiences in the field of human factors engineering, passengers’/pedestrians’ crowd evacuation modelling, adoption and deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles, crowd dynamics modelling, supply chain, safety analysis and evaluation and emergency services planning.
A/Prof Rebecca Yang
Rebecca has developed a strong and passionate commitment to industry-focused and applied research. Her research resonates with RMIT’s vision of transforming the built environment to create sustainable and resilient cities. Her primary research focus is on solar energy applications in buildings, and construction innovation, with applications to safe, healthy, and liveable cities.
