GIS, Human Geography, and Disasters

Andrew Curtis is in the Department of Geography at the University of Southern California. Prior to this he was Director of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health at Louisiana State University. His research interests are centered around the geography of health, with a particular emphasis on spatial analysis and geospatial technology. During Hurricane Katrina he helped with geospatial support for search and rescue operations in the Louisiana Emergency Operation Center. He continues to work on various Katrina recovery projects, including developing new geospatial approaches that can empower the abandoned communities of New Orleans in the fight to reestablish their neighborhoods.Jacqueline W. Mills is in the Department of Geography at the California State University at Long Beach. Her research interests are focused around Geographic Information Science (GISc) approaches to the study of natural disasters, particularly how places recover from these events and how people modify their environment to become disaster-resilient. Specific interests within this larger agenda include land use, health, policy, community participation through GISc, and geospatial risk communication. She continues to work in post-Katrina New Orleans, as well as in areas impacted by the 2007 Southern California wildfires. In 2007, a team including Curtis and Mills were awarded the Meredith F. Burrill Award by the Association of American Geographers (AAG) for the LSU GIS Clearinghouse Cooperative . an important spatial data clearinghouse for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.