People in the RDR Network
The Risk, Disaster and Resilience (RDR) Network brings together risk researchers and experts from diverse areas to develop practical solutions.
The Network is managed by a convening group, which is guided by Andrew Crisp AM APM, the Former Emergency Management Commissioner, Emergency Management Victoria. Members of the current convening group are
- Celeste Young
- Professor Roger Jones
- Fiona Smith
- Dr Shou Chen
Our people
VU Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research Partnerships and Program Leader, Mechanisms and Interventions in Health and Disease.
Professor Vasso Apostolopoulosis a world-renowned researcher recognised with over 100 awards. She was the first in the world to develop the concept of immunotherapy for cancer in the early 1990s, which today is used by hundreds of labs around the world. In response to the current global pandemic, Vasso and her team in VU's Immunology and Translational Research group are focused on responding to COVID-19, investigating and working on vaccines and drugs to treat the virus.
Expertise: immunology, vaccine and drugs development. Chronic diseases of interest include cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases (rare diseases, COVID, etc.), multiple sclerosis, drug addiction and mental health.
Key skills: program development, funding opportunities and development of key partnerships (with strategic contacts in the flood, mould and restoration industries).
RDR topics: COVID-19, immunology, viruses, floods, vaccines, drug addiction, mental health.
Deputy Head of the Psychology discipline and Co-Deputy Leader of the Clinical and Community Health and Wellbeing research program in the Institute for Health and Sport.
Professor Michelle Ball is an expert in human behaviour in fire. Her past research includes investigating why some people die in accidental residential fires, while others survive. She conducted research with the former Metropolitan Fire Brigade on its Juvenile Fire setting Awareness and Intervention Program. She also leads the Microbiome and Psychobiology group.
Expertise: cognitive psychology (with a particular focus on executive functioning and assessment), the interaction between the gut microbiome and psychological symptom expression, and cognitive processing during sleep (what wakes people up).
Key skills: applied research and industry partnerships.
RDR topics: human behaviour in fire, cognitive functioning, psychological assessment, community health and wellbeing.
Dr Elmira Jamei is Deputy Director at Institute for Sustainable Industries & Liveable Cities (ISILC), Course Chair of Building Design Program at Victoria University, and Senior Lecturer in Built Environment at College of Sport, Health and Engineering. Her focus is on research programs that investigate the interaction between built environment and climate and how urban dwellers are affected by this interaction. Before joining VU, Dr Jamei worked on number of government-funded projects in ASEAN countries, where she led multidisciplinary research groups focusing on increasing challenges of urban climate (particularly urban heat island) using a range of emerging technologies.
Expertise: sustainable built environment, climate change mitigation and adaptation, urban heat island, climate and water-sensitive urban design, ecological footprint, built environment, building energy performance, numerical simulations and spatial analysis, translational research and urban ecology
Key skills: Applied research, climate change impact assessments and public health, development of climate change mitigation strategies research translation, policy frameworks energy performance/benchmarking, sustainability assessments, industry partnerships
Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Professor Roger Jones applies a transdisciplinary approach to understanding and managing systemic risk. Previously, he was at CSIRO for 13 years, where he pioneered methods for climate risk assessment, carrying out impact and adaptation assessments for a wide range of sectors. He has since branched out into economics, policy and decision-making, encompassing the full risk cycle. He was coordinating lead author on the chapter Foundations of Decision Making in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report. He was coordinating lead and lead author on previous two reports. He is also working on climate as a complex, self-regulating system which undergoes periodic regime shifts.
Expertise: catchment and integrated urban water management, climate change risk management, climate impact assessment and adaptation, complex systems science, decision support, ecological and institutional economics, integrated modelling approaches, transdisciplinary research and urban ecology.
Key skills: wide experience across the natural sciences, an ability to interconnect systems to build interdisciplinary links. Analyses small to medium sized data sets and builds impact models. Development of simple explanations for complex phenomena, skilled scenario writer.
RDR topics: climate risk management, natural hazards, water catchments, urban water management, coastal vulnerability, liveability, wellbeing, sustainability, green infrastructure, environmental economics.
Associate Professor in Material Science at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Associate Professor Paul Joseph has an international reputation in the field of polymer science and combustion chemistry. He was lead academic supervisor for a UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project devising environmentally friendly means of removing unspent polymeric products from components of injection moulding machines. He was also a co-investigator on another large UK program that investigated the integrated safety strategies for onboard hydrogen storage systems.
Expertise: organic/polymer syntheses and characterisation, combustion chemistry and toxicity, chemical modification of polymers to confer flame retardance, recycling of plastics and cellulosic materials, energy from waste, greener technologies, and bio-based fire retardants for ligno-cellulosic materials in the context of wildland fires.
Key skills: applied chemical sciences research, investigator and project leader, with an international knowledge network and instrumental in attracting major research grants.
RDR topics: fire protection and safety, water disinfection, green technologies, waste energy, domestic waste recycling.
Senior Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering and researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Dr Wasantha Liyanage has an internationally recognised, award-winning track record in geotechnical engineering and rock mechanics research. His current focus includes modelling hydraulic fracture propagation, induced seismicity and ground deformation due to tunnelling in soft and hard rocks. His work also focuses on shear behaviour of rock joints, effect of soil reactivity on lightweight structures, and the use of artificial neural network (ANN) in geotechnical engineering.
Expertise: designing experiments and customising testing apparatus for specific research needs.
Key skills: investigating the effect of fire on soil and rock properties including post-bushfire debris flow, rockfall and landslide, or slope failure hazards (often triggered during the rainy season following a bushfire), modelling induced seismicity caused by fracking, wastewater injection, mining, etc.
RDR topics: disaster resilience, bushfires, tunnel fires, reactive soils, earthquakes, tremors, landslides, rockfalls.
Professor in Fire Modelling and researcher with the Fire Research Group at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Professor Khalid Moinuddin is a mechanical engineer and experimentalist, with a focus on fire science and engineering. He is also a computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based modeller. Khalid is an editorial board member for the Fire Safety Journal (#1 building fire safety) and led a $1.55 million Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC grant project from 2014 to 2021. In recent years, he has developed two major streams of research at VU: development and application of a three-dimensional physics-based wildfire model, and fire safety engineering in naval applications.
Expertise: wind flow modelling, fire growth and development, smoke and flame propagation, heat transfer and thermal measurement, water-based fire suppression, bushfire propagation and ember transport, materials behaviour in fire and passive fire protection, and performance-based building codes and fire risk analysis.
Key skills: computational and experimental research in areas of combustion, flame growth and propagation, turbulent fluid motion, tunnel fire and fire risk analysis, determining the effectiveness and reliability of building fire safety systems in Australian buildings, including sprinklers, smoke detectors, smoke management systems and evacuation systems.
RDR topics: bushfires, wildfires, tunnel fires, building fire safety, fire risk analysis, fire protection, fire suppression, smoke detection and management, fire evacuation systems.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering, and researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Dr Shobha Muthukumaran has a 9-year industry background in pollution control and a further 20 years’ experience in water and environmental engineering collaborative research projects. She has made significant contributions in solving water industry problems by developing innovative treatment solutions for water and wastewater systems.
Expertise: water and wastewater treatment, integrated urban water management, water recycling and reuse, membrane separation processes and advanced oxidation processes.
Key skills: developing advanced treatment techniques for the removal of various micropollutants and resource recovery from wastewater, investigating the advances in engineered nanomaterials for the next generation membranes for water and wastewater treatment, and exploring sustainable ways of protecting rivers and streams by managing stormwater quantity and quality using green infrastructure strategies.
RDR topics: environmental protection, pollution control, water management, river health, stormwater infrastructure, wastewater treatment, water recycling.
Professor of Mathematics and researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Dr Cagil Ozansoy teaches electrical engineering with a focus on power and energy systems. His research investigates how information exchange and communications can play a major role in shaping the electrical grid of the future – smart grids. He is also leading research and development projects in novel methods to reduce faults in electrical power networks from bushfires.
Expertise: design and development of communication-assisted power systems protection, automation and control applications.
Key skills: digital signal processing, machine learning (ML), data acquisition, wired communications, and the internet of things (IoT).
RDR topics: smart grids, electrical power network faults, bushfires, power systems protection and automation.
Course Chair of the Bachelor of Science degree, Group Leader of the Applied Ecology and Environmental Management Research Group in the Institute of Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities (ISILC) and Lecturer in Environmental Science in the College of Sport, Health and Engineering.
Dr Roan Plotz is an expert in multi and interdisciplinary research programs that investigate ways to incorporate indigenous knowledge into contemporary scientific systems and mitigating human-wildlife interactions and behaviour. His past research includes enhancing community resilience to climate change via the integration of traditional and contemporary climate forecast knowledge to improve climate forecast communication to regional communities in the Pacific. He conducted this research with the Bureau of Meteorology on its Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific (COSPPac). He also leads the Applied Ecology and Environmental Change Research group and investigates ways to improve conservation management and ecology of endangered species, like the critically endangered black rhinoceros in Africa (see: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30353-5).
Expertise: behavioural and wildlife ecology (with a particular focus on human-wildlife interactions, conflict, and endangered species management), and the recognition and integration of indigenous and scientific knowledge systems to increase the resilience of vulnerable communities facing the impacts of climate change.
Key skills: applied research in multi and interdisciplinary programs
RDR topics: human-wildlife conflict management, behavioural ecology, indigenous knowledge, community resilience and wellbeing
Associate Professor of Water Resources, and researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Associate Professor Ashok Sharma is a Fellow of the Australian Institution of Engineers and has 30 years’ experience in research, academia, consulting and construction. Before joining VU, he worked for nearly 12 years at CSIRO where he led research on decentralised systems and water-sensitive urban design. He also worked as a planning engineer at the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and at Mines Australia, and was an engineer at the State Water Corporation, Uttar Pradesh, India. He has been project lead for water utilities, industry and state agencies, and has led a decentralised systems project for Water Security Research Alliance SEQ and a water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) project for the Goyder Institute for Water Research, South Australia.
Expertise: centralised and decentralised urban and peri-urban water supply, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure systems and treatment, integrated urban water management, water-sensitive urban design, ecological footprint and water energy nexus.
Key skills: sustainability assessment, hydraulic and hydrological modelling, stormwater quality and quantity modelling, downscaling climate data, system optimisation, software development (FORTRAN 90), project management and lifecycle costing.
RDR topics: water-sensitive urban design (WSUD), wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, water treatment, urban water management, climate data, sustainable water management.
Principal Research Fellow in sociology/criminology at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Professor Debra Smith’s research focuses on issues of violent political extremism, social conflict and social change. She has extensive experience working with policing, community and government stakeholders to improve knowledge of all kinds of violent extremism. She then helps translate this research into frontline practitioner tools and training. Debra was also part of the expert panel on effective case management and information-sharing barriers relevant to violent extremism, commissioned for the independent review of the Terrorism (Community Protection) Act 2003.
Expertise: terrorism and political violence, countering violent extremism, emotions and violent extremism, and the role of social media in radicalisation to violence.
Key skills: strong relationships with federal and state agencies and departments in relation to counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism, applied research design, risk assessment tool validation, qualitative research, project management, research translation, and police and security practitioner training.
RDR topics: violent extremism, counter-terrorism, political violence, social conflict, social change.
Adjunct Associate Professor in Water Supply, Demand and Security at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Dr Atiq Tariq has 15 years’ research and consultancy experience in water supply, demand and security. His PhD from TU Delft (2011) developed a risk-based flood management approach and since then he has been involved in many industrial and commercial research and consultancy projects. He has also received best paper awards in journals and conferences.
Expertise: water resources, flood studies, remote sensing, GIS, water-sensitive urban design, hydro politics, hydro informatics, and water footprints.
Key skills: task-specific software packages and industry-standard GIS software such as ArcGIS and QGIS, extensive experience in flood modelling and forecasting platforms like Sobek/Flow2D/HEC RAS, HEC GeoRAS, HEC HMS, HEC GeoHMS and Extremes/Flood Frequency.
RDR topics: flood risk management, flood management, flood protection works, water resources, water-sensitive urban design (WSUD), urban drainage systems, hydro politics, hydro informatics, water footprints.
Associate Professor in Structural Engineering and Head of Built Environment at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Associate Professor Zora Vrcelj works collaboratively as a researcher and investigator across the built environment, engineering and construction sector to achieve impactful outcomes. Her focus is on technological developments for high-performance structures – smart buildings and civil infrastructure.
Expertise: sustainable structures and building materials, structural stability, engineering mechanics, and advanced composite structures embedded with piezoelectric sensors and actuators.
Key skills: structural engineering design and testing, and evaluation of materials used in buildings and civil infrastructure.
RDR topics: smart buildings, sustainable construction, high-performance structures, structural stability, green roof coverage, construction safety.
Discipline Leader of Technology in Engineering and Science Research at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Professor Hua Wang is a highly experienced researcher in machine learning (ML) and data analysis. He was appointed a member of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) College of Experts in 2021 and has been an ARC proposal reviewer since 2009. He is a Director on the Research Council of Oceania Cyber Security Centre (OCSC), a collaboration between eight Victorian universities and the State Government of Victoria, working with industry to advance cyber security education and research. As a chief investigator, Hua has received seven ARC grants and nine international grants.
Expertise: artificial intelligence (AI) and its application to power systems, big data analytics, access control, cyber security, data mining, deep learning and privacy preserving.
Key skills: applied researcher and investigator, editor with several major journals, and presenter at many prestigious international conferences.
RDR topics: AI for power systems, big data, cyber security.
Lecturer in Civil Engineering and researcher in Engineering and Science Research at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
A former geotechnical engineer at Coffey (Melbourne), Dr Ehsan Yaghoubi has over 10 years’ experience in teaching, research and practice in highway and geotechnical engineering. He has contributed to over 40 infrastructure projects in Australia in project management, design and supervision of geotechnical investigations. Ehsan’s research focuses on unsaturated soil mechanics, recycled and waste materials in geotechnical applications, and road pavement materials. He has published several papers in top-ranking geotechnical journals and presented at several prestigious conferences.
Expertise: reuse of waste/recycled material, geothermal pavement systems (a clean/renewable energy source) and improving the resilience of pavement systems in harsh climatic events, such as bushfires.
Key skills: has established state-of-the-art geotechnical and pavement (asphalt) testing facilities at VU to carry out cutting-edge research on transport infrastructure. Opportunities for recycled construction materials include road pavements, highway embankments, pipe beddings, trench backfill, and expansive clay subgrade improvement. Highly experienced industry collaborator and has authored more than 20 technical reports.
RDR topics: bushfire resilience, transport infrastructure, renewable energy, recycled materials in civil construction, sustainable development.
Collaborative Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities.
Ms Celeste Young produces high impact, transformative research in the areas of disaster, recovery and resilience by focusing on the end user. During 10 years as a transdisciplinary researcher, she has developed and led multi-party collaborative projects with industry, community and all levels of government. Celeste developed the methodology 'working from the inside out' which uses a systems approach to embedding new knowledge into pre-existing systems. Her practical, evidence-based approach has been widely adopted by practitioners, researchers and policy-makers in Australia and overseas. Co-design and linking research to ongoing training and learning in policy and practice are central to this process. Celeste has advised government on climate change communication and practice, the future workforce and she was a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report chapter – Foundations of Decision Making.
Expertise: climate change adaptation, resilience, natural hazard management, communication, diversity and inclusion (D&I), future workforce, transformation and risk, and community capability.
Key skills: project development, strategic planning, stakeholder and project management, auditing, quality assurance, research translation and utilisation, development of decision-making frameworks for policy and practice, systemic assessment and analysis, integration of new knowledge into decision-making, governance (organisational and institutional), risk management, communication and engagement, innovation and transformation.
RDR topics: risk management, climate change, resilience, transformation, natural hazards, decision-making, future workforce.
