Summary

The purpose of the project is to introduce students to the software tools used to investigate and mitigate natural disasters. To do so we designed and implemented four different courses related directly to methods used to study natural disasters. These courses are currently in the university catalogue, and they are part of the curriculum.

In addition, we conducted several undergraduate research projects every school year, and during summer semesters, in which students studied and researched natural disasters. The software used in these studies were GIS and Tableau. Some of the undergraduate projects mentored by our faculty over the years have produced papers and posters, some of which were published.

In the last 2 academic years a one-week bootcamp was supervised to teach students the programming language Python and how to use it and implement it to solve natural disaster related problems. Furthermore, two research modules were embedded in to two of the Cyber Security courses taught at our department. These two modules dealt with cyber security that may occur during natural disasters. Finally, with funding from DHS we established a computer lab that is used when teaching the courses mentioned above.

Investigator