Staff
Gavin Smith, Executive Director
Dr. Smith is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disasters and the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Natural Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and Emergency Management. The Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disasters, which is located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focuses on conducting research associated with natural hazards and disasters and translating the findings to practice. In this role Dr. Smith oversees the administration of the CSNHD including the identification of research opportunities, building partnerships among hazard scholars and practitioners and managing additional research initiatives and sub-centers as they emerge. Dr. Smith also serves as the executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Excellence for the Study of Natural Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and Emergency Management. The Center of Excellence research focus areas include: hazard modeling, engineering and infrastructure protection, human behavior, and land use planning. Dr. Smith is currently engaged in planning-related research within the center, focused on a national evaluation of local and state hazard mitigation plans.
Prior to accepting the position of Executive Director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gavin Smith served as a Principal in the firm PBS&J. As one of 10 individuals designated as a principal professional within a 4,000 person firm, specific duties included the provision of high level policy counsel to governors, federal agencies, corporations, universities and nations regarding disaster recovery and hazard mitigation practice. Following Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Smith worked in the Mississippi Office of the Governor, serving as the Director of the Office of Recovery and Renewal. In this role, he and his staff focused on four primary tasks: the identification of federal, corporate, non-profit and foundation financial assistance; the provision of education, outreach and training to local governments and state agencies; providing counsel to the Governor, his staff and state agency officials regarding disaster recovery policy issues, and the implementation of the Governor’s Commission Report: After Katrina: Building Back Better than Ever. In this role he testified before Congress twice, providing recommended policy changes to improve the delivery of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction activities. He also developed the concept and wrote policy guidance associated with the 400 million dollar Alternative Housing Pilot Program, an initiative intended to test the construction and deployment of improved emergency housing alternatives following Hurricane Katrina.
Dr. Smith is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and teaches courses in Disaster Recovery, Hazard Mitigation and Special Topics. Dr. Smith is currently writing the text, A Review of the United States Disaster Assistance Framework: Planning for Recovery (Public Entity Risk Institute) and recently completed book chapters addressing the linkage between hazards analysis, planning and sustainable development.
Rick Luettich, Director
Rick Luettich received his undergraduate and Masters degrees in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech and his ScD in Civil Engineering from MIT. He is a Professor of Marine Sciences and Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and he also serves as the Director of UNC’s Institute of Marine Science, a facility comprised of approximately 75 residential faculty, staff and students located on the coast in Morehead City, North Carolina. He has recently co-founded the Center for Natural Hazards and Disasters to help enhance multi-hazard research programs at UNC. His research encompasses modeling and observational studies of physical processes in coastal systems. His modeling emphasizes geometrically complex systems such as sounds, estuaries, tidal inlets and coastal areas. He is one of the two principal developers of the ADCIRC coastal circulation and storm surge model and has overseen applications that have ranged from retrospective studies and forecasts of storm surge/inundation and tidal circulation along the US coasts to interdisciplinary studies such as physically mediated organismal migration and larval dispersal. ADCIRC is approved for storm surge studies by FEMA and has been a corner stone of recent US Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA efforts that include forensic studies in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, planning new hurricane protection systems for the Northern Gulf coast and updating FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps along the US coast. Luettich is serving on two National Academy/ National Research Council review committees – one reviewing the IPET study by the Army Corps into the factors that led to the catastrophic damage to New Orleans by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the second reviewing the Army Corps’ LACPR program which is evaluating options for a new hurricane protection system for Southern Louisiana. Luettich’s observational studies have included moored and shipboard sampling to characterize physical processes in coastal systems and have often been oriented toward understanding the role of physical processes in areas of water quality (e.g., phytoplankton blooms, dissolved oxygen depletion) and fisheries recruitment. He has actively contributed to the national Integrated Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (IOOS) programs and is presently collaborating on several real time observing systems in coastal North Carolina.
Anna Schwab, Program Manager
Anna K. Schwab serves as Program Manager in the Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disasters located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). The Center focuses on conducting research associated with natural hazards and disasters and translating the findings to practice by working collaboratively with diverse partners throughout North Carolina, around the Nation, and internationally. In her role as Program Manager, Ms. Schwab coordinates the research, publication, and outreach projects of the Center, acts as liaison among participating principal investigators, and facilitates the ongoing engagement and public service initiatives of the Center.
Prior to accepting the position at the Hazards Center, Ms. Schwab served most recently as project manager and senior research associate for the Hazard Mitigation Planning Initiative, a partnership between UNC-CH and the NC Division of Emergency Management that provides technical assistance to local governments to develop, adopt and implement hazard mitigation plans in compliance with the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. Ms. Schwab has also spent many years serving as research associate and program coordinator for a variety of public service and research initiatives at UNC-CH, with her primary focus concentrating on land use, law and planning, coastal zone management, sustainable development, environmental management, resource conservation and natural hazards mitigation.
Ms. Schwab’s published and unpublished works reflect her wide-ranging interests, with her most recent writings focusing on natural hazards and the development of resilient and sustainable communities. Among these is the 2007 release of Hazard Mitigation and Preparedness: Building Resilient Communities published by John Wiley & Sons as part of series on the disaster cycle targeted at professional emergency managers. In 2006 she served as coordinator and contributing author of the Coastal Hazards Management Instructor Guide for the Emergency Management Institute’s Higher Education Program, with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and in collaboration with the NOAA Coastal Services Center. Recent journal articles and chapters have addressed the topic of sea level rise; a critique of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000; and an essay in The Practice of Local Planning published by the American Planning Association. In addition, Ms. Schwab is co-author along with Professor David Brower and Dr. Timothy Beatley of An Introduction to Coastal Zone Management, published by Island Press. Other government-issued technical materials that she has authored or co-authored include several guides and instructional manuals to assist local planners and emergency managers in the State of North Carolina, as well as the Capability Section (Appendix “B”) of the current NC State Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Ms. Schwab received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics, a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning, and a Law Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.