Gary Webb is Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Management and Disaster Science at the University of North Texas. The department houses the Emergency Administration and Planning program (EADP), which was established in 1983 as the nation’s first bachelor’s degree program in emergency management. Prior to UNT, he spent the early part of his career (2000-2011) at Oklahoma State University, where he received the Regents Distinguished Teaching Award and the Arts and Sciences Junior Faculty Award for Scholarly Excellence. While his primary appointment was in sociology, he was also a core member of the Center for the Study of Disasters and Extreme Events and an affiliate of the Fire and Emergency Management Program. Before starting his academic career at OSU, Gary served as a graduate research assistant and later as a post-doctoral fellow at DRC (1994-2000), and during that time he also had the opportunity to work closely with DRC alumnus Gary Kreps at the College of William and Mary.

Gary is primarily interested in studying organizational and community preparedness for and response to large-scale disasters. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in a wide variety of journals, including the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, International Journal of Emergency Management, Natural Hazards Review, Environmental Hazards, and others. Most recently, along with fellow DRC alumni Brenda Phillips and Dave Neal, he co-authored a new edition of Introduction to Emergency Management. He has taught and presented his research internationally in The Netherlands, Denmark, France, South Korea, and Turkey.