Dr. Osamu Murao is a professor at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University, which was established in order to disseminate learning from the 2011 East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster, and the founder of the International Strategy for Disaster Mitigation Laboratory (ISDM). Together with collaborating organizations from many countries and with broad areas of specializations, the IRIDeS conducts world-leading research on natural disaster science and disaster mitigation. In order to be in charge of ISDM in Regional and Urban Reconstruction Research Division, Dr. Murao was transferred to IRIDeS from Faculty of Engineering, Information and Systems at the University of Tsukuba in April 2013.

Fumihiko Imamura is a Professor of Tsunami Engineering and director of the International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University. He joined the IRIDeS in April 2012 as vice director after the director of Disaster Control Research Center, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University in 2010-2012.
He is an expert on tsunami modeling, mitigation planning and education/awareness. He has conducted field surveys as leader for earthquakes and tsunamis damage investigation since the 1992 Nicaragua and Flores Island in Indonesia. And he is a secretary, international TIME-project (Tsunami Inundation Modeling Exchange) supported by IOC and IUGG Tsunami commission.

Co-Founder of Open Hazards Group and Chair of the Board.
Distinguished Professor of Physics and Geology, University of California, Davis.
John currently serves as Executive Director of the APEC Cooperation for Earthquake Simulations  (ACES:  http://quakes.earth.uq.edu.au).
Senior Advisor, APRU and APRU Multihazards Hub, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
John was a Visiting Associate at the California Institute of Technology (1980-1982) at the Caltech Seismological Laboratory.  He was also a Member (1990 – 1997) and Chair (1994-1996) of the scientific Advisory Council to the Southern California Earthquake Center.  He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA (1995-present), an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and a Fellow of both the American Physical Society (2005) and the American Geophysical Union (2008).

Kuniyoshi Takeuchi is Advisor of International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHARM), Tsukuba, Japan and Professor Emeritus of Yamanashi University in Kofu. He served as the Founding Director of ICHARM from March 2006 to September 2014. He was a professor of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Yamanashi University for 30 years till March 2007. He got his BS (1966), MS (1968) and Dr.Eng. (1982) in civil engineering at University of Tokyo, and Ph.D. (1972) in city and regional planning at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major field is hydrology and water resource systems. Interest includes reservoir operation, hydrological statistics, stochastic hydrology, distributed hydrological modeling, lake hydrology, radar and satellite hydrology etc. He served as a principal investigator of various hydrological research projects including those of the Mekong River and the Yellow River Basins.

Major research projects in our laboratory are to apply space geodetic techniques, especially the Global Positioning System (GPS), to measure crustal deformations of the earth’s surface and the data analyses for help understand crustal dynamics and develop a system for forecasting crustal activity. We have used GPS technology to the following research projects; (1) We have established a permanent dense GPS array in the Tokai area to delineate detailed crustal deformation in the area where a large earthquake is expected to occur in the near future, (2) Numerical simulation of GPS data using nationwide GPS array (GEONET) that is operated by the Geographical Survey Institute, and (3) Collaborative research on tectonics in the plate convergent areas in other parts of the world such as Indonesia and India.

Hung-Chi Kuo received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University in 1987. He worked at Naval Research Laboratory from 1988 to 1990. He joined National Taiwan University (NTU) in 1990. He was a Visiting Professor of University of California at Los Angeles in 1994. He lectured at Purdue University in 2002-2003. He was the Vice President for Academic Affairs, NTU in 2016-2018. He is currently the Chair Professor with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, NTU. He is a fellow of Meteorological Society of Republic of China. His research interest is in atmospheric dynamics, tropical cyclone, and mathematical modeling. He is the author and co-author of 70 publications with more than two thousand citations.

Prof. Hui Zhang is vice director of Institute of Public Safety Research in Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He is vice chairman of Chinese Public Safety Association, a member of ISO/TC223 (societal security) and is currently in charge of establishing ISO standard on “emergency capability assessment” (ISO 22325). He is a core member of APRU (Asia-Pacific Ring University) Multi-hazard Group. He has conducted several national important projects, such as framework design of national Emergency Response Platform (ERP) System; software and database system development for emergency response system; integrated prediction and early warning system for national ERP; emergency response system. Prof. Zhang is the PI of a key research program of NSFC focused on “city’s comprehensive risk assessment” and the PI of a major research program of NSFC focused on “scenario-response based emergency management integration platform development”.

The Center of Excellent for Earthquakes and Vibrations, Chulalongkorn University has been established since 1986. At the beginning period, the center aimed mostly on conducting the engineering researches related to earthquakes and vibrations; e.g., seismic analysis and design of reinforced concrete structures, vulnerability study of buildings in low to moderate seismic zones, passive and semi-active control of building vibrations under major distant earthquakes, dynamic and cyclic behavior of soft Bangkok clays, ground response and seismic hazard analysis and etc. Currently, the center has expanded its scopes to cover researches and studies on wider aspects of the disaster risk reduction (DRR). We had initiated and involved in drafting the first national seismic resistant design for Thailand and its later amendment. In 2013, the center was the main organizer for drafting the guidelines for seismic rehabilitation of building which has already been enforced in 2015.

Dr. Denise Eby Konan is Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (UHM). As Dean, she provides leadership to twelve academic departments that deliver nearly a fifth of degrees offered on campus.
Dr. Konan has long been active in local economic research. She is a Research Fellow at the University of Hawai’i Economic Research Organization (UHERO), where she previously served as the Director of the Energy & Greenhouse Gas Solutions (EGGS) research program, which specialized in issues of energy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction in Hawai’i. She also is the founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Coastal Tourism at the University of Hawai’i Sea Grant College Program. The center promotes respect for the culture, environment, and economy of Hawai’i and other coastal visitor destinations through research, education, and outreach.

Hugo Romero-Aravena (born in Valparaiso, Chile, on April 21st, 1950) is Associated Professor in the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of University of Chile, institution where he has been working for 46 years. He has been Director of the Millenium Research Center on Disasters and Socionatural Vulnerabilities between 2011 and 2014. His education includes a tittle of Teacher in History and Geography, obtained in University of Chile, a Master of Sciences in Land Resources Management obtained in the National College of Agricultural Engineering, University of Cranfield, U.K. , a Diploma in Geographical Information Systems Applied to the Environment, obtained in the Ecole Polithecnique Federal de Laussane in Switzerland, and a Doctorate in Geography and Land Resources Management obtained in University of Zaragoza, Spain.

Dr. Benito Pacheco is Professor at the Institute of Civil Engineering, University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City, Philippines He is also Academician member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (Philippines). Among his recent engagements through the University are national projects to review and replace the Philippine legislation that regulates building design and construction throughout the country, and to update a national framework of prioritization of multi-hazards retrofit of school buildings.