Friday, February 25, 2005 << >>

Emergency Disaster Response - Rescue and Rehabilitation: Tsunami Myths and Realities

Douglas Keh
Mr. Keh currently serves as Special Assistant for the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). As the spokesman and information management official for the UNDP in Banda Aceh, he has just returned from the tsunami-affected areas. Before that, he served as First Officer Office of the Special Representative for the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and the Research Development and Coordination Officer for the United Nations International Drug Control Program.

Michael VanRooyen
Dr. VanRooyen currently serves as the Associate Director of the Program on Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights at The Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. He also holds an appointment as the Chief of the Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Previously, he was Co-Director of the Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies (CIEDRS) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Associate Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the JHU School of Medicine. He has worked extensively in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in over 30 countries, including recent crises in Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, and Honduras. Dr. VanRooyen's research has focused primarily on health systems' reconstruction in conflict and post conflict settings.   He has developed systems evaluation tools for assessing the rehabilitative priorities in areas affected by disaster and war. His experience is centered around applied field methods for relief and reconstruction. Dr. VanRooyen has developed and taught an Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance course throughout South East Asia for the past three years in preparation for earthquakes and tsunamis.

Peter Walker
Dr. Walker is Executive Director of the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts University. He formerly served as Director of Disaster Policy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva and Head of the International Federations Regional South East Asia Office in Bangkok. He also worked as Founder and Manager of the World Disasters Report.