Disaster and Recovery

President Havidán Rodríguez was a featured panelist at the 2019 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit, held last week in Tempe, Arizona. Rodríguez shared his expertise in disaster research as part of a discussion on “Resilience, the Disaster Economy and Climate Justice.”

The panel, with five experts including three university presidents, explored how campuses can become more resilient to climate impacts, and examined some of the social justice implications that come with greater vulnerability of marginalized communities and less-wealthy institutions. Discussions centered on the impact of devastating storms, opportunities to rebuild in more sustainable ways, and how universities can aid in post-disaster recovery.

Rodríguez, a sociologist who studies the socioeconomic impacts of disasters and the economic well-being of minority populations in the United States and Puerto Rico, formerly directed the University of Delaware’s acclaimed Disaster Research Center — the world’s first research center devoted to the studying the complex social problems that result from natural and technological disasters and other community-scale crises.

As co-chair of SUNY’s Puerto Rico Taskforce, he has made multiple trips Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria with state and SUNY officials, including a service mission as part of Gov. Cuomo’s Puerto Rico Recovery and Rebuilding Initiative. UAlbany students also volunteered in rebuilding efforts in Puerto Rico; some 45 students from myriad majors did cleanup work in January, and 30 from the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity (CEHC) visited last May.

Last month Rodríguez led a New York State Writers Institute panel on “Puerto Rico: The Hurricane, the Response and Preparing for Future Disasters.”

The Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit is sponsored by Second Nature, a Boston-based organization committed to climate action through higher education, and the Intentional Endowments Network, which advocates for sustainable investment for colleges, universities and other institutions. More than 350 leaders in higher education attended this year’s summit.

UAlbany has a longstanding institutional commitment to climate action and has been a member of Second Nature since signing a commitment in 2008 to reduce carbon emissions. The University was one of the first campuses to use U.N. Global Goals to identify sustainability-related course work and research and is currently updating its campus Climate Action Plan.

University faculty from CEHC, the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, and the School of Public Health are all addressing the impacts of a changing climate through their research and scholarship.

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