Crisis & Disaster Management Research & Training Initiative at SU

Civil Unrest.  Water Scarcity.  Epidemics.  Terrorism.  Economic Disasters.  Organized Crime. Humanitarian Crisis. Armed Conflict.  Natural Disasters.  War. 

The Crisis & Disaster Management Research and Training Initiative (CDM) at Syracuse University is a cross-campus, interdisciplinary initiative tasked with understanding the dynamics and processes that occur as policymakers, scientists, engineers, and citizens struggle to cope with crisis and disaster situations.

CDM’s program institutional capacity extends across four of SU’s colleges, including the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs as well as seven research centers including the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, the Geographic Information and Analysis (GIA) laboratory of the Department of Geography, the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC), and the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT).

In addition to be a central repository for research and collaborative study on topics such as physical and social resilience, risk analysis, decision-making, and geospatial representation, CDM also provides training to the practitioner community which ranges from day-long workshops to 14-week credit bearing undergraduate and graduate classes. Student in our MPA and MA IR programs can complete graduate courses in Crisis Management and Challenges in Crisis and Disaster Management.

Affiliated faculty include Professors William Banks (national homeland security law and policy), Cynthia Morrow (public health), Thomas Dennison (community based health care), Ines Mergel (social media), Margaret Hermann (crisis management/political leadership), Randall Griffin (emergency management/public safety), Laura Steinberg (disaster management/resilience analysis) among many others.