Bio
Dr. Havidán Rodríguez is UD's Vice Provost
of Academic Affairs and former Director of the Disaster
Research Center (DRC). He joined the University of Delaware
in 2003 as Director of the DRC and Professor in the Department
of Sociology and Criminal Justice. He obtained his Ph.D.
in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin. He has vast
administrative experience serving as Director of the Center
for Applied Social Research (CISA), Associate Dean of Research,
Acting Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Puerto
Rico-Mayagüez (UPRM), and Director of the Minority
Affairs Program for the American Sociological Association
(ASA). Dr. Rodríguez has been a visiting professor
at the University of Michigan’s Population Fellow’s
Program (2001-2003) and was selected as the Frey Foundation
Distinguished Visiting Professor, at the University of North
Carolina-Chapel Hill (Spring, 2002). He also served as the
Chair of the Latino/a Sociology Section of the ASA (2003-2004).
Currently, he serves as a member of the following committees
of the National Research Council of The National Academies:
Disaster Roundtables, Committee on Assessing Vulnerabilities
Related to the Nation's Chemical Infrastructure, and the
Committee on Using Demographic Data and Tools More Effectively
to Assist Populations at Risk of Facing Disasters. Dr. Rodríguez
has also served on a number of review panels for the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and other funding agencies.
Rodríguez has received funding from
NSF, the Ford Foundation, the National Institute of Mental
Health, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, and the UPRM Sea Grant Program,
among others, for a number of research projects on the social
science aspects of hazards and disasters and for research
projects aimed at providing hands-on research training and
mentoring to undergraduate and graduate students. He is
currently working on three research projects focusing on
population composition, geographic distribution, natural
hazards, and vulnerability in the coastal regions of Puerto
Rico (funded by the UPRM Sea Grant Program); he is a lead
social science researcher for the Engineering Research Center
(ERC) for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere
(CASA - funded by NSF); and a researcher of the Social Science
research team of the Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAE
- funded by NSF). He is also the Principal Investigator
(with J. Nigg) for the DRC Research Experience for Undergraduates
(REU) also funded by NSF.
Dr. Rodríguez has published in the
areas of disasters, diversity in higher education, and Latinas/os
in the United States. He is the co-editor (along with E.
Quarantelli and R. Dynes) of the forthcoming (2006) Handbook
of Disaster Research. Some of his recent publications include:
Reflections on the United Nations World Conference on Disaster
Reduction: How Can We Develop Disaster Resilient Communities
(2005); A Long Walk to Freedom and Democracy: Human Rights,
Globalization, and Social Injustice (2004); Disasters, Vulnerability,
and Society: An International and Multi-Disciplinary Approach
(2004 – Invited Editor with Wachtendorf); The Role
of Science, Technology, and the Media in the Communication
of Risk and Warnings (2004); Disaster Research in the Social
Sciences: Lessons Learned, Challenges, and Future Trajectories
(2004 – with Wachtendorf and Russell); Communicating
Risk and Warnings: An Integrated and Interdisciplinary Research
Approach (2004 with Diaz and Aguirre); and Promoting Diversity
and Excellence in Higher Education Through Department Change
(2002 – with Levine, Howery, and Latoni).
Dr. Rodríguez is a sociologist with
academic training in demography and statistics. He has expertise
in both quantitative and qualitative research methodology.
Rodríguez has collaborated in a number of multi-
and inter-disciplinary research projects. He has taught
courses at the graduate and undergraduate level on bio-statistics,
research methodology, demography, senior research seminars,
introduction to sociology, and race and ethnicity.
