Brenda Phillips, Ph.D., is the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Indiana University South Bend, where she will be guest lecturing on gender and disasters in the Women and Gender Studies program, and on socio-behavioral response and recovery in our Natural Disasters course. She is an author of Disaster Recovery, Introduction to Emergency Management, Qualitative Disaster Research and Mennonite Disaster Service. She has co-edited Social Vulnerability to Disasters and Women and Disasters. Her published research, funded by the National Science Foundation, can be found in a variety of journals including the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Disaster Prevention, Disasters, Humanity and Society, the Journal of Emergency Management, Natural Hazards Review, and Environmental Hazards.

Dr. Phillips has been invited to teach, consult, or present in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, India, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Venezuela, Canada, Sweden, and the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Phillips earned the Blanchard Award for excellence in emergency management education and the Myers Award for work on the effects of disasters on women. She was inducted into the International Women’s Hall of Fame for Emergency Management and Homeland Security in 2013.