Building community: events, engagement and partnerships
Highlighting UCL Risk & Disaster Reduction's (RDR) media, policy, and industry engagement showcasing research impact, expert contributions, and partnerships driving global risk and disaster reduction.
Media and public engagement
Public‑facing media appearances and outreach:
- Professor Ilan Kelman on LBC and Sky News discussing the UK heatwave.
- Professors Joanna Faure Walker and Ilan Kelman interviewed on the Pacific earthquake/tsunami for multiple outlets (BBC, The Guardian, The Independent, Science Media Centre, etc.).
- Professor Joanna Faure Walker featured on BBC and international media about Santorini earthquakes.
- Dr Gianluca Pescaroli on CGTN about misinformation/disinformation as a global risk.
- Umut Lagap interviewed on Turkish national TV about earthquake resilience research.
- Dr Sonja Ayeb‑Karlsson’s research on custody violence and filicides was covered by Swedish BBC. She also gave a keynote at the European Parliament on legal entrapment and deadly family violence at a conference on the crisis of the family courts.
- Professor Joanna Faure Walker on Get it in 10 podcast for geography pupils, discussing the 2023 Turkey-Syrian earthquake and building codes.
- Dr Susannah Fisher on the BBC’s Instant Genius podcast. Her book Sink or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate was reviewed in The Financial Times.
- Dr Myles Harris published in The Professional Mountaineer on health risks in desert, jungle, and polar mountain expeditions.
- Dr Megnaa Mehtta wrote in The Telegraph on erosion, ports, and island vulnerability.
- Dr Rozana Himaz featured in Daily Mirror Online with op‑eds and editorials on disaster risk mitigation and recovery planning.
Student outreach
In August 2025, UCL Risk & Disaster Reduction delivered a 'Global Humanitarian Studies Snapshot' as part of the UCL Sutton Trust Summer School, supporting high‑achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds with an immersive introduction to university.
Global Humanitarian Studies Snapshot 2025Policy and industry engagement
Expert input shaping policy and practice:
- Professor Mohammad Shamsudduha was invited to give a talk and join a panel at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification COP16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the session Smart Water Management for Building Resilience in Drought‑Prone Communities.
- Dr Sonja Ayeb‑Karlsson joined the European Council’s Network for Specialised Legal Support Assisting Victims of Violence Against Women, (Secretariat of the Istanbul Convention monitoring mechanism (GREVIO) and Directorate of Equal Rights and Dignity).
- Professor Joanna Faure Walker joined a House of Commons panel reflecting on the second anniversary of the 2023 Türkiye–Syria earthquake hosted by the Centre for Turkey Studies and Development.
- Dr Punam Yadav was in conversation with UN Under‑Secretary‑General for Global Communication, Melissa Fleming, discussing information integrity.
- Dr Louisa Acciari was pedagogical coordinator for ‘Citizen Domestic Work’, a leadership training programme organized by the National Federation of Domestic in Brazil, financed by the Ministry of Women and the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC).
- Connecting with insurance and catastrophe risk modelling professionals at the EFEHR stakeholder workshop.
UCL RDR monthly events
Over the 2024–25 academic year, our monthly events brought together researchers, students, and practitioners to debate urgent questions in risk and disaster reduction:
- 15th UCL Risk & Disaster Reduction annual conference: Where is the ‘human’ in humanitarianism?
- Inaugural Lecture: Professor Mohammad Shamsudduha
- Gender, disaster, and the Sendai Framework: a decade of progress?
- Financing climate change and disaster resilience in the Asia Pacific
- Leadership in resilience: thriving in your early career
- The road to COP29 in Baku: tackling the climate crisis
- Cost-effective and fair climate change adaptation.
Taster lectures
We have relaunched our online taster lectures aimed at prospective students but available to all, which this year saw staff posing key questions for our students, staff, and collaborators:
- Why do we need humanitarians anyway?
- Why do disasters matter?
- How do we understand the ‘human’ in humanitarianism?
- How can better warning systems save lives?
- Who holds the power? Control and leadership in humanitarian action
- How can AI help to reduce disaster risk?
- What does history teach us about risk and resilience?
- Why wait for things to go wrong?
- What works in humanitarian action and what’s worth funding?
