Congratulations! New NSF Grant award “Building Capacity for Safer Post-disaster Shelter: Leveraging Local Understanding and Advanced Engineering Assessments”!

Prof. Liel, along with PI Amy Javernick-Will (Construction Engineering & Management) and Co-PI Matt Koschmann (Communication), received a grant the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment (HDBE) program to study post-disaster shelter reconstruction programs in the Philippines and Puerto Rico. This 3-year, $500,000 project will assess the safety of post-disaster shelter in future earthquake and strong wind events, investigate household understanding of shelter safety, identify conflicts between engineering assessments and household understanding, and recommend communication strategies for improving post-disaster training programs. We expect this research to improve the resilience of communities affected by disasters. PhD students Casie Venable and Briar Goldwyn will be working on this project in the Philippines and Puerto Rico, respectively.

Congratulations Prof. Liel and the entire research team!

Link to the award:  https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1901808&HistoricalAwards=false