Dr. Louise Comfort

Louise K. Comfort is Professor Emerita and former Director, Center for Disaster Management, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. She is also an affiliated researcher with the Policy Lab, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, University of California, Berkeley and Concurrent Professor, School of Government, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, 2019. Elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2006, she received the 2020 Fred Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement, Section on International Comparative Administration, American Society for Public Administration. Her recent book, The Dynamics of Risk: Changing Technologies and Collective Action in Seismic Events, Princeton University Press, 2019, received the 2020 Don K. Price Award for Best Book from the Section on Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics, American Political Science Association. She led an international, interdisciplinary group in a comparative study of 12 nations’ response to COVID-19, that produced a co-edited book, L.K. Comfort and M.L. Rhodes, Global Risk Management: The Role of Collective Action in Response to COVID-19, Routledge Publications, September, 2022. She studies the dynamics of decision making in response to urgent events: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, wildfire, and COVID-19.