Resilience, Reliability, and Response in Complex Systems: Lessons from Disaster Risk Management

Professors: Nelson and Clark-Ginsberg
Units: 0.5
Elective Course
Concentration: Policy Analysis, Social/Behavioral Science

This course applies concepts from the social and behavioral science, public health engineering, and cybersecurity to understand disaster risk management (DRM). This encompasses policies and other actions to prevent, mitigate, respond, and recovery from disasters and involves coordination among governmental and nongovernmental entities at the local, national, and international levels.

Along with helping students establish content knowledge of this increasingly important area, the course helps students build their skill sets for analyzing complex systems, especially as it relates to infrequent and/or catastrophic events. Students will be exposed to the core tenets of DRM — key theories, methods, and paradigms. They will also examine how disasters are managed in practice, both in the United States and in developing countries, and build a transdisciplinary perspective on integrated disaster policy research.

This course should be of interest to students interested in disaster management, as well as students who want a more general understanding of complex organizational systems.