Liesel Ritchie

co-author of "Handbook of Disaster Research, 2nd edition"

January 24, 2018

Dr. Liesel Ritchie is Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Disasters and Extreme Events at Oklahoma State University and an Associate Professor in OSU’s Department of Sociology. During her career, Ritchie has studied a range of disaster events, including the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills; the Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash release; Hurricane Katrina; and earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand. Since 2000, her focus has been on the social impacts of disasters and community resilience, with an emphasis on technological disasters, social capital, and renewable resource communities, and she has published widely on these topics.

Ritchie has more than 20 years of experience in evaluation and research. Prior to joining OSU, she served for 10 years as Associate Director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Ritchie was a Senior Research Associate at the Evaluation Center (Western Michigan University) and served for six years as Coordinator for the Social Science Research Center's Evaluation & Decision Support Laboratory (Mississippi State University). Ritchie is a National Institute of Standards and Technology Disaster Resilience Fellow and a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee for Measuring Community Resilience.

This second edition of the Handbook reflects some of the foundational topics for disaster studies; current substantive, methodological or theoretical topics of interest; as well as new and emerging topics in the field. While highlighting some of the iconic themes of the 1st Edition, including what is a disaster; morbidity and mortality associated with disasters; gender and disasters; and race, class, ethnicity, and disasters, the 2nd Edition also brings to the forefront new and emerging research themes in the field of disaster studies, including climate change; children and disasters; technological and natech disasters; as well as the news media and disasters, among others.

The 2nd Edition of the Handbook will continue to inform the field of disaster studies for years to come; it will expand our knowledge in this important field of inquiry, but will also generate new questions and research ideas; will continue to positively impact the growth, development, and expansion of this field and our growing community; and will continue to raise awareness regarding the onset and impact of these events in societies throughout the world, and, in turn, will have significant and positive impacts on disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

 

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2018-honorees/liesel-ritchie

Last Updated: 8 February 2018