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Disaster Resilience Speakers

Stefan E. Schulenberg

· Nov 15, 2017 ·

Stefan E. Schulenberg received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology, with a specialization in clinical-disaster psychology, from the University of South Dakota in 2001. He is a licensed psychologist in the state of Mississippi, a professor in the University of Mississippi’s Psychology Department, and a Logotherapy Diplomate. Schulenberg is the director of the University of Mississippi’s Clinical-Disaster Research Center, an integrated research, teaching, and training center with emphases in disaster mental health and positive psychology.

Schulenberg has authored or co-authored over 75 publications, articles in peer-reviewed journals, or chapters in scholarly texts. His research interests include disaster mental health, perceived meaning/purpose in life, positive psychology, and psychological assessment. He served as a mental health consultant on a National Science Foundation research grant issued in response to Hurricane Katrina and conducted evaluation research funded by the Mississippi Department of Mental Health relating to the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He conducts workshops and provides training on disaster preparedness, psychological first aid, disaster response, meaning and purpose in life, resilience, and post-traumatic growth.

Schulenberg has served as a disaster mental health volunteer and supervisor in the American Red Cross, and has worked previously with various other volunteer organizations, such as Mississippi’s Disaster Response Network, United Way, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. He teaches the graduate cognitive assessment course for the University of Mississippi’s doctoral program in clinical psychology. At the undergraduate level, Schulenberg teaches courses in disaster mental health, positive psychology, psychology and law, and abnormal psychology. He is presently working toward the development of a multidisciplinary minor in disaster sciences, a joint effort involving many different constituents on campus.

Rich Forgette

· Nov 15, 2017 ·

Rich ForgetteRich Forgette is associate provost and professor of political science at the University of Mississippi. He also serves as the interim director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi.

Forgette’s research and teaching fields are in the study of legislatures, political reform, and community resilience. He is the author of three books and numerous journal articles on Congress, the federal spending process, voting rights and redistricting, federal disaster management, and public budgeting. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security. He has led interdisciplinary research teams assessing disaster recovery and security after Hurricane Katrina, creating measures and models of community resilience to withstand large-scale disasters.

He received his bachelor’s from Pennsylvania State University, a master of arts degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master of science in public policy analysis, and a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Rochester. Forgette served for 11 years on the faculty at Miami University, and he was the American Political Science Association’s Steiger Congressional Fellow in 1996-97, working in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Mustafa Altinakar

· Nov 15, 2017 ·

Mustafa Altinakar is director and research professor at the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering at The University of Mississippi. He holds a Ph.D. in hydraulics and a master’s in applied mathematics from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.

Before joining the NCCHE in December 2002, Altinakar served as the acting cirector of LRH-EPFL from 2001 to 2002 and the head of the Fluvial Hydraulics Section of LRH-EPFL from 1997-2001. From 1989 to 1997, he was a senior design engineer and project manager at Bonnard and Gardel Consulting Engineers Ltd. in Lausanne and took part in large-scale projects, including design of dams, hydroelectric power plants, flood protection schemes, drinking water supply, and wastewater collection networks in Switzerland, France, Turkey, and North African countries.

His research areas include fluvial hydraulics and its environmental aspects, sediment transport and local scour, flood simulation and mapping, natural hazards and emergency management, decision support systems, and the design of hydraulic structures. At NCCHE, Altinakar led the development of DSS-WISE™ and DSS-WISE™ Lite software packages. The latter is a web-based, automated dam or levee break flood simulation and mapping tool, which has now become the standard software for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, state dam safety offices, and stakeholder federal agencies such as NOAA-NWS, USACE, USDA-NRCS, DOE-ANL.

Altinakar co-authored two books and published more than 150 journal and conference papers. He currently serves on National Reservoir Sedimentation and Sustainability Committee, ASCE-EWRI Technical Committee on “Managing Reservoir Sediment: Technical, Economic, and Policy Issues,” and the IAHR Technical Committee on “Flood Risk Management.” He currently is working on various projects funded by FEMA, DOE-ANL, MDEQ, California State University in Sacramento (acting on behalf of California Department of Water Resources) and USDA-ARS.

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