We recently connected with Amer Abukhalaf and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Amer, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I have always been interested in risk management and how to identify, analyze, prioritize, treat, and monitor different types of risk. When I got the chance to explore that interest of mine during my Master’s, I didn’t hesitate, and I built my capstone thesis, “Revising Institutional Disasters Response Strategies in the US: Hurricane Katrina Case Study,” on the different strategies of risk treatments, including risk acceptance, transference, avoidance, and reduction. Getting to work on such a topic also interested me in exploring the most significant risks of all: Natural Hazards. To do so, I started my Ph.D. at the University of Florida (UF), joined the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience as a Research Assistant, and became a member of the “Disasters, Trust, and Social Change (LDTS)” research lab. In addition, for my Ph.D. dissertation, I chose the topic “Studying the Built Environment Impact on Personal Disaster Preparedness Behaviors,” which looks into explaining and predicting personal disaster preparedness behaviors through understanding how housing conditions influence people’s risk perception. This topic is novel and has never been done before. It is also multidisciplinary and requires a deep understanding and expertise in safety design techniques, disaster management strategies, and theories in human behavior and psychology.

In the past few decades, the frequency and severity of natural hazards have increased significantly in the US and globally. Between hurricanes, tornados, flooding, snow and sand storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes, there is not a single state or a country that is not facing the imminent danger of natural hazards. Therefore, there is a need for more scholars to research natural hazards and disasters to improve how we prepare and respond to such threats, which are only expected to increase in the future. Here in the US, for example, the government spends millions of dollars every year in response to and recovery from natural hazards, which represents a serious threat to the safety of the public, as well as the economy of this country. And even though more focus has been given to disaster research in the past few years, it is still unclear why some people choose to prepare for such hazards while others don’t, or why some people choose to inhabit risky areas while others don’t. My current research, including my dissertation, aims to fill these gaps to improve how we respond to natural hazards and prevent them from becoming disasters.

My research also aims to make human behaviors during disasters quantifiable. Doing so allows these behaviors to be better understood and more easily predicted. Instead of waiting to rescue people at risk, why not predict who will be at risk and try to change their behavior and encourage them to be well-prepared in the first place before there is a disaster? As they say, “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.” And this is what I am trying to do with my research in the US and worldwide. In addition, many of us are now aware of how social media companies and marketing agents collect data to influence people’s purchasing habits and profit from them. My research aims to use similar techniques and customize emergency communication based on housing conditions and the dwelling’s structural characteristics to positively influence behaviors during disasters and encourage them to be better prepared for such hazards. If people are better prepared, they will be less impacted by natural hazards, and less support will be needed from the government. This will save millions of dollars spent yearly on rescuing and helping people who are unprepared, refuse to evacuate, or make other bad decisions that put them and others in imminent danger.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, a master’s degree in Business Administration, with an Executive Management Major, and a Ph.D. in Design, Construction, and Planning (DCP). I have nine years of work experience in the US and internationally. I filled the following positions: Project Manager, Design Group Leader, Senior Designer, Designer, Material Take-Off Engineer, and Site Engineer. I worked on many multimillion-dollar mega projects, including King Fahad Medical City and Jalila Children’s Hospital. Moreover, I have six years of teaching experience in academia and training in the industry in the US and internationally. For years, I have worked in the market, taught professionally, and have been working in research and development. Between three different universities and three different colleges and majors, I gained a unique chance to have incredible multidisciplinary exposure.

I also got the chance to work on many risk-related research projects that looked into disasters from many different angles. I have conducted several research studies that examined Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. I have also researched unique areas, such as the integration of mental health care in crisis management strategies. Since 2020, I have published (10) peer-reviewed research papers, (17) peer-reviewed short articles and opinion pieces, (12) research news articles, (9) conference posters and research updates, (2) research papers under review, (4) research papers under construction, and I am the first author for most of my published work. Accordingly, I was asked to join the Registered UF Faculty Experts List in Disasters and Emergency Management in 2021. Moreover, I am constantly serving as a reviewer for top journals and conferences, and I have recently become an Editor of the academic journal PLOS ONE, which has a (3.75) impact factor.

I have always believed in bridging the gap between scholars and the public. Unfortunately, many scholars don’t know how to communicate their work to the media or the public, which makes their voices unheard and their work less impactful. Therefore, I work constantly on my media presence to give my work the exposure it needs and deserves. I publish in top journals (e.g., International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction), I write for the most famous research news websites (e.g., The Conversation), I am repeatedly being asked to be a panelist for the biggest conferences in the field (e.g., Natural Hazards Annual Conference and Workshop), I accept invitations to be on talk-shows (e.g., Top of Mind with Julie Rose) to talk about my research, I get interviewed and featured in magazines (e.g., Grist), I talk about my work on important podcasts (e.g., Disaster Deconstructed Podcast), and I am determined to continue giving my research more media exposure to open new collaborations with other scholars and research institutions, as well as public, private, and nonprofit organizations in the US and worldwide.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I worked in civil design from 2011 to 2015 for an international company called AIC. In 2013, the AIC management decided to expand the business and turn our small office, which had 14 employees, into a regional office with 250 employees in less than a year. My role in this big organizational change was significant as I was asked to design and start training courses for the newly hired employees. I had mixed feelings about this big task that I was asked to do; I was honored and flattered when I was chosen to carry this big responsibility, but I was young and concerned because I had no previous experience in teaching or training. Everything happened so fast, and within a few weeks, I found myself teaching different classes with over 50 engineers for the following few years.

The first time I stood in front of the class was a moment that I will never forget; the stress, anxiety, and self-doubt disappeared in a second, and I felt that this was where I belonged. I found teaching to be very exhilarating for me, and I had never felt before more energized than after teaching a class that has gone well. Everyone in the company noticed how invested I was in teaching these courses, including my trainees who gave me the highest evaluation of a training course that the company had ever seen. I discovered a new and true passion, and that made me want to go back to academia because teaching is what I wanted to do from that moment on.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

As a multiracial Jordanian immigrant who came to the US as an international student, I am sensitive to the different challenges that ethnic minorities face in the US in general, and at institutions of higher education in particular. Academia must strive to expand diversity with a more inclusive approach and create a broader pool of worldviews. By providing an equal-opportunity environment fostering respect and communication, a university will enhance the student experience as well as enable collaborative and innovative research. I thus understand the true value of mentors and educators who promote an atmosphere of inclusion and work hard to enable all students to access the tools they need to be successful.

Since I started at the University of Florida (UF), I have voluntarily initiated several projects to study many aspects of the well-being of ethnic groups on campus to empower them and make sure their voices are heard by the school administration. In 2019, I started a project with the UF Department of Emergency Management to improve the hurricane preparedness level among immigrants at UF. Simultaneously, I initiated collaboration with the UF International Center on a project that aimed to improve the emergency communication system by eliminating language-based discrimination and integrating different languages to communicate with linguistic minorities on campus during emergencies.

In 2020, during the COVID-Outbreak, I initiated a new collaboration with the UF International Student Support & Engagement team on a project that aimed to support and integrate mental health care in the university response to the pandemic, with a focus on anxiety and depression assessment and treatment among ethnic groups and other minorities. The project lasted for two years and covered very critical topics that had a significant impact on the mental health of many minorities, such as the hate crimes against Asians during the outbreak & the Stop Asian Hate movement, the discrimination against black communities & the Justice for George Floyd movement, as well as the threats of visa cancelation for international students during the pandemic. In addition, I organized a training session titled “Mental Health and Disaster—A Crisis Intervention Roadmap,” focusing on equity and inclusion at the 47th Natural Hazards Annual Conferences in 2022. This led to a new project in 2022/2023 with the UF English Language Institute to empower immigrants and ESL (English as a Second language) students and their dependents at UF.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://engamerhamad.wixsite.com/risk-management
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/amer-hamad-issa-abukhalaf-71320275
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/abukhalafamer?lang=en