12:57 p.m., April 22, 2009----The University of Delaware and Argonne National Laboratory have signed a memorandum of understanding to foster collaboration with UD's Disaster Research Center (DRC) in the areas of decision science and emergency management.

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According to DRC Director Sue McNeill, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the agreement promotes cooperation in common research and technical interests, including research on disaster-related topics of common interest; the exchange of human resources through internships, postdoctoral appointments, sabbaticals, and joint appointments; and programs to bridge the gap between academic research and practitioner implementation.

Argonne's research and development programs focus on three major areas -- energy, biology and environmental systems, and national security -- with collaboration a critical dimension of the research.

“This is a very exciting opportunity for us,” said Dick Cirillo, director of Argonne's Decision and Information Sciences Division. “We work extensively in the areas of emergency preparedness and emergency planning, and we're always looking for the right partners to do this work with us. Given the mission of DRC and its long history of interdisciplinary research, this is a good match. We'll be doing things that are not only interesting but also important to the country.”

Mark Barteau, Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical Engineering and senior vice provost for research and strategic initiatives, who signed the agreement on behalf of the University, pointed to the importance of strategic partnerships in UD's Path to Prominence^TM. “We want to use this agreement, with its strong social science presence, as a model,” Barteau said. “It's very easy to see things in purely scientific terms, but real value comes from adding the social science perspective to science and engineering.”

Joseph Trainor, a staff researcher at DRC, will act as the UD liaison scientist, and Paul Hewett, deputy director of the Center for Integrated Emergency Preparedness, will represent Argonne. “In looking at Argonne's list of projects and our list,” Trainor said, “I see that every one of them could benefit from this collaboration.”

The first social science research center in the world devoted to the study of disasters, DRC was established at Ohio State University in 1963 and moved to the University of Delaware in 1985. DRC was originally housed within the UD Department of Sociology, but in 2007, its reporting structure changed to recognize the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the center's research.

“This agreement is an important part of DRC's move from its strong foundation in sociology to an interdisciplinary center,” McNeill said, “while it maintains its sociological roots.”

DRC researchers have carried out systematic studies on a broad range of disaster types, including hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous chemical incidents, and plane crashes, as well as on civil disturbances and riots.

Some 600 field studies have been conducted since the center's inception in communities throughout the U.S. and in Mexico, Canada, Japan, Italy, and Turkey.

Article by Diane Kukich
Photo by Doug Baker