emi

Dr. Fouad Bendimerad
Chairman
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Dr. Bendimerad has served as consultant and advisor on risk management to several international organizations and corporations, including the World Bank, and United Nations organizations, as well as governments and corporations worldwide. He also served as Principal Scientist to RMS, a California Corporation and leader in the development of risk assessment models for the global insurance and reinsurance industry. Further, he used to be a faculty of the School of Engineering at Stanford University and in charged with the University’s seismic reduction program, which recently received the ATC-ENR award of one of the ten top seismic project in the country. Dr. Bendimerad earned his Masters and Doctorate degrees in Civil Engineering from the same university, and has written numerous articles and papers on the subject of disaster risk assessment and management. 

Prof. Friedemann Wenzel
Vice Chair
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Friedemann Wenzel is a professor at Karlsruhe University (http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/visitors/duf.php ), head of the Geophysical Institute (http://www-gpi.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/) and the Center for Disaster Mangement and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM, www.cedim.de). He is a founding member of EMI and served on its Board ever since. He is a member of several professional societies (EERI, AGU, SSA), of the Heidelberg Academy of Science and Humanities, and of the German Committee for Disaster Reduction and served as chairman of its Scientific Board between 2000 and 2004. Scientific interests include earthquake physics, engineering seismology, geological hazards, and risk mitigation in megacities.

Dr. Renato Solidum
Vice Chair
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Dr. Solidum is currently the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) since 2003. He received the 2010 Presidential Lingkod Bayan for raising the bar of disaster risk reduction and initiating a nationwide mapping program that generated new information on tsunami-prone areas, useful for local governments in risk-sensitive development planning and disaster preparedness. He holds a Master’s Degree in Geological Science from the University of Illinois and completed his PhD in Earth Science at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California in San Diego. He is a recognized expert in Geochemistry, Marine Geology, Volcano and Earthquake Geology, Geologic Hazards Assessment and Awareness, and Earth Science Education.

Atty. Violeta Somera-Seva
General Secretary/Treasurer
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Atty Seva is currently the General Secretary and Treasurer of the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative(EMI). She has worked as Legal and Institutional Expert in Disaster Risk Management specifically in Metro Manila , provinces, cities and municipalities in the Philippines, Amman Jordan and Mumbai India. She was responsible for establishing EMIs linkages with local authority associations and networks such as the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Regional Network of Local Authorities for the Management of Human Settlements(CITYNET), the World Association of Major Metropolises (METROPOLIS) and International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives(ICLEI) for the promotion of disaster risk reduction in cities worldwide. She is actively involved with the activities of the Advisory Panel of the UNISDR Campaign on Making Cities Resilient 2011- 2012 and the UNHABITAT World Urban Campaign 2011-2012.

Hon. Jejomar Binay
Member

Jejomar C. Binay is the current Vice-President of the Philippines, and former Mayor of Makati City. A former Chairman of the Metro Manila Development Authority, he is actively involved with numerous local and international organizations.  He is the Vice-President for Membership of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) -Asia Pacific Region and a lifetime honorary member of its World Executive Committee.  He is the Chairman of the Finance Sub-Committee of the World Scout Organization and a member of the Executive Committee of the Network for Local Authorities for the Management of Human Settlements (CityNet).  He was also a senior executive fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  The multi-awarded mayor placed 4th in the 2006 World Mayor Award, the only Philippine local chief executive to have earned such a distinction so far.  As part of his administration’s commitment to disaster risk management, he established the Makati Command, Control and Communication (C3), which responds to emergency calls within the city and dispatches emergency response teams from the Makati Rescue, Makati Police, Makati Fire Department and Department of Public Safety.

Dr. Asteya M. Santiago
Member
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Dr. Asteya Santiago has served as Dean of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Philippines Diliman. As an urban planner and public administrator, she worked as Head of the old Regulatory Office, now known as the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) and later as an Head of the Urban Planning Division of  the Intramuros Administration which was tasked to restore Intramuros, a historic site in Manila. She was also appointed by the President as member of the Board of Directors of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) and later served as its Vice Chairman,  BCDA is the agency responsible for converting the country’s military bases into commercial use. For the past 30 years, she served as consultant for various government agencies such as the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), among others. Dr. Santiago earned her Bachelor of Law degree (Cum Laude) and a Certificate of Government Management from the University of the Philippines. She obtained both her Masters (town and country planning) and Doctoral degrees (Architecture, major in urban and regional planning) from the University of Sydney in Australia.

Prof. Amaryllis T. Torres
Member
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Dr. Torres is the Dean of the College of Social Work and Community Development and an affiliate professor in the Women and Development Studies at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. She has written several books and scholarly articles on women and development, gender mainstreaming, human resources, child labor, community development, Filipino social psychology, among others. In 2000, she was  awarded by the Women’s Studies Association of the Philippines for her Outstanding Contributions to Women’s Studies in the country. Alongside her academic and administrative post, Dr. Torres is involved in several local and international research and development projects as well as in social movements that are working towards women empowerment, rural development, education and third world development, in general. She received her doctoral, masteral, and bachelor’s degrees in Psychology from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Farouk Tebbal
Member
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Farouk Tebbal held various positions for the Algerian Government in urban development and planning, including senior positions in the government as General Secretary and Minister of Housing and Urban Development. As director of the National Construction Control Agency he supervised the planning and reconstruction process of the city of Alsnam after the 1980 earthquake. He joined UN-Habitat in 2001, and was in charge of the management of the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure that he launched in over 12 countries. He was member of the UN Millenium task force on slums. Seconded to the Cities Alliance, a global coalition of cities and their development partners based in Washington DC, he was in charge of the Slum Upgrading portfolio covering around 50 cities worldwide. He retired recently from the UN system and is currently the lead consultant on urban projects in the MENA region for the German Cooperation Agency (GTZ). Farouk Tebbal earned his Masters degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California Berkeley.