2:41 p.m., Aug. 3, 2010----James M. Kendra, an expert in emergency and crisis management, has been named director of the University of Delaware's Disaster Research Center (DRC), the first center in the world devoted to the scientific study of disasters. The announcement was made by University Provost Tom Apple and the appointment is effective Jan. 1, 2011.

THIS STORY

E-mail

Print

Twitter

Kendra, who also receives an appointment as associate professor of public policy at UD, currently is an associate professor of public administration and coordinator of the Emergency Administration and Planning Program in the Department of Public Administration at the University of North Texas.

“The University of Delaware is pleased to welcome Jim Kendra as the new director of our Disaster Research Center,” Apple said. “His extensive background in emergency and crisis management, coupled with his energy and enthusiasm, will serve this world-class center well, as he leads new efforts to expand its interdisciplinary scope and distinction.”

Apple also recognized Sue McNeil, professor of civil and environmental engineering and urban affairs, for her leadership of the center for the past three years.

“Great thanks to Sue McNeil for her tireless work in helping to realize the center's potential and in overseeing its numerous research projects around the globe, from Hurricane Katrina to the earthquake in Haiti,” Apple said. McNeil will extend her term as the center's director until Kendra's arrival.

The word “interdisciplinary” is emblematic of Kendra's background and career goals. He actually started out as a merchant seaman on the East Coast, but a major catastrophe an ocean away -- the running aground of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince William Sound -- shifted his interests in the direction of disaster research.

Kendra says he was struck by the media's portrayal of the event as “a seagoing drunk-driving accident” with the focus primarily on the captain. In reviewing the National Transportation Safety Board data, Kendra says he saw “large, systemic, preconditions for disaster” ranging from high-pressure work in a difficult environment, to a crew exhausted due to downsizing.

Kendra went on to the University of Massachusetts, where he received a master's degree in geography with a focus in environmental management and land-use planning. Then he earned his doctorate from Rutgers University in geography with a focus on individual and organizational response to risk and hazard.

From 2000 to 2003, he was affiliated with UD's Disaster Research Center as a postdoctoral research fellow, where he managed a number of projects focusing on disasters and emergency planning. He has been on the University of North Texas faculty since 2003.

“I'm very honored to be appointed director of the Disaster Research Center,” Kendra said. “It's truly a center of worldwide importance, and I see my job as stewarding and advancing the intellectual legacy of the center while increasing its interdisciplinary emphasis. Disasters are the nexus of every social problem -- they intersect in so many aspects of community and social experience, requiring expertise in sociology, engineering, public health, and many other fields.”

Kendra says one of his principal goals is to broaden the scope of emergencies the DRC is accustomed to handling. Currently, there is a lot of debate in the field about what constitutes a disaster, he says.

“In my view, it's time to bring drought, desertification, and other creeping threats more squarely in the mainstream of disaster research,” he notes.

Kendra also is looking forward to increasing awareness of the DRC's educational capabilities.

“It would not be an overstatement to say that my years as a postdoctoral fellow here at UD were among the most consequential of my academic career in terms of advanced training and experience, so I have a strong appreciation of the importance of the 'DRC experience' to undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs,” he says.

The recipient of several honors for excellence in teaching and student mentoring, Kendra says he looks forward to helping to develop UD's new graduate program in disaster studies.

“My goal in my courses is to prepare students not for their first job, but for their next job, and the job after that -- for all their jobs,” Kendra says. “Ultimately, I want to prepare students to take their place in setting policy agendas related to risk, hazard, and disaster.”

Article by Tracey Bryant