Secretary, 2016 – 2017

PhD Candidate, Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, University College London

Background

Being passionate about the Arctic and the Middle East on the one hand and economics, international relations / security and disaster studies on the other, my academic and professional background turned out to be rather interdisciplinary. Academically, I obtained a B.A in Economics and Business Management (University Witten/Herdecke, Germany & Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand) and a MSc in International Relations with a focus on international security issues between Europe and the Middle East (University of Edinburgh, UK), which I continued to study for another 8 years, among others as a research fellow at the IDC Herzlyia and the INSS in Tel Aviv. 3 years ago, I started to specialize in Disaster Management and took up several volunteering positions to explore this field from a practical angle, before starting my PhD in Disaster Studies at UCL.

Professionally, I have worked as a business consultant and project manager for several years, among others for Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM, the German-Israeli Chamber of Commerce and as well as an independent consultant.

Furthermore, I am affiliated with the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Management (WADEM), to which I am contributing as an executive board member of the WADEM disaster nursing track and by researching the medical side of the ongoing refugee crisis in Greece.

Current Research

As a PhD Candidate at the UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, I am researching Disasters in the Arctic. Specifically, I am looking at community-based disaster risk reduction and response in the face of cascading disasters and wicked problems.

Contact: patrizia.duda@polarnetwork.org