emi

James Buika (MS Geology, USC)

Jim is a professional earth scientist and a California-registered Geophysicist. He has been a disaster management specialist for the past 18 years, most recently with the Pacific Disaster Center in Hawaii from 2002-2006. Mr. Buika served for thirteen years with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Region IX, San Francisco, as FEMA's Regional Earthquake Specialist; in this position, he led efforts to implement the application of the national risk assessment software, HAZUS. He has managed federal disaster mitigation teams for typhoons, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and freezes within California, American Samoa and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Dr.  Nathaniel von Einsiedel (PhD, Pacific Western Univ.)

Dr. von Einsiedel is a licensed Environmental Planner and Architect in the Philippines, and accredited as an Urban Development Specialist by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. He has over 30 years of experience in government, the private sector, as well as international agencies on a variety of urban development and management programs and projects in several Asian countries. He served as Commissioner for Planning of the Metropolitan Manila Commission where he established and managed its operating systems on Land Use Planning and Zoning, Capital Investments Planning, and Local Development Planning. He also served as Regional Director for Asia-Pacific of the United Nations Urban Management Programme (UN-UMP) where he managed technical assistance projects in 22 cities across 11 Asian countries. Currently, he is serving as a consultant to a number of local governments and private real estate development companies. He obtained his Bachelors degree in Architecture from the University of the Philippines, his Masters in Urban Planning from Columbia University, and his PhD in Public Administration from Pacific Western University. He has lectured extensively and published numerous papers on urban development and management.

Dr. Antonio L. Fernandez (Dr. Eng, Osaka Univ.)

Dr. Fernandez was for many years with the United Nations Centre for Regional Development in Nagoya, Japan as international expert doing research and training in the field of environmental planning and management in developing countries. He worked with  the Earthquake Disaster Migitation Research Center in Kobe where he did a comparative study of disaster-related science and technology policies and became involved in disaster risk management master planning in Manila.  The latter was done in collaboration with the Earthquakes and Megacities Inititative, where he was Principal Scientist briefly. He continues to be engaged in training, participatory and multi-stakeholder workshops. His consultancy includes ADB, UNDP, NGOs and UNISDR. He has helped draft the national action plans for disaster risk reduction of the Philippines and Maldives.

Dr. Bijan Khazai (Ph.D., UC Berkeley)

Bijan is a Senior Researcher at the Center of Disaster Management and Reduction (CEDIM) at Karlsruhe University in Germany, where he is developing applications to evaluate the risk of megacities to multiple hazards. Dr. Khazai's research and consulting experience has involved pre and post disaster, risk and hazard assessment. For his doctoral work at the University of California – Berkeley, he has worked on developing GIS-based earthquake risk assessment models in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a post doctoral research fellow at Columbia University, he was involved in assessments of reconstruction methods following disasters in Iran, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Orleans. Dr. Khazai was the Project Manager for EMI's megacity's indicator system project in Istanbul and the Partnership for Urban Risk Reduction (PURR) project with UCLG, Metropolis, CityNet and ICLEI. He was also involved as a team member in EMI's DRM projects in Metro Manila, Amman, and Mumbai.

Troy M. Kindred (BA Political Science, University of Hawaii)

Troy is an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading provider of management and technology consulting services to the U.S. government. His expertise is on comprehensive emergency management, continuity of operations, and homeland security strategic planning. Currently on military activation leave, Mr. Kindred also holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Hawaii Army National Guard and is the liaison of the U.S. Pacific Command for the State Partnership Program.He has extensive experience in various aspects of emergency and disaster risk management having served as Administrator of the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, liaison and adviser to the Republic of Indonesia during the 2006 anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and trainer to the countries of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives on behalf of the International Tsunami Information Center and United Nations Development Programme for topics on emergency operation center operations and standard operating procedures/checklist devolvement. Mr. Kindred has provided support to the Emergency Management components of EMI's projects in Mumbai, India; Aqaba, Jordan; and Pasig City, Philippines.

Shirley Mattingly (MA, UCLA)

Shirley has a long professional experience in risk and emergency management. For 13 years, she served as Emergency Management Director for the City of Los Angeles and worked as Regional Director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). She also served as consultant to a number of DRM projects worldwide: the JICA-funded Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS), the earthquake disaster mitigation project in Kathmandu Valley, and the development of a national risk management and emergency plan project for the Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nepal, Ecuador and Colombia. She received her undergraduate degree from Occidental College and her master’s degree from UCLA. She was also a Fullbright Scholar in Quito, Ecuador and has completed a senior executive program at Harvard University.

Julie Paran, EnP (MA-URS, Sheffield Hallam Univ.)

Ms. Paran is a licensed Environmental/Urban and Regional Planner in the Philippines. She has more than ten years of development work experience in the fields of urban and regional planning, land use planning, environmental planning, local governance, project development/project management, results-based performance management, anti-poverty, tourism, strategic and operations planning and participatory governance. Before joining EMI, she served as Director of the Local Development Office, Center for Governance, Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP).

Atty. Saviniano M. Perez, Jr. (LLB, Lyceum; MEP, Univ. of the Phils.)

Atty. Perez has served as consultant and advisor on various areas of concern in urban planning and project development for the Philippine national and local governments, including but not limited to policy formulation and the study of the legal and institutional aspects, of infrastructure projects such as toll roads, water supply, public markets, health facilities’, telecommunications, airports, postal facilities, ports, power, and special economic zones.  He has served as Special Technical Assistant to the office of the Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways, where he assisted in developing Public-Private Partnership in project implementation.  He has likewise served in the ASEAN Committee on Transportation and Communications as Philippine government representative.  At present he is a member of the Faculty, Graduate School, Jose Rizal University and is involved in the Pubic Administration Program.  Previously, he was an instructor in the Department of Geology and Geography of the University of the Philippines.  He earned his B.S. Geology and Masters in Environmental Planning (Urban-Regional Planning), from the University of the Philippines; and his Bachelor of Law from the Lyceum of the Philippines.  He was a Director and President of the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planning (PIEP) and served as Chancellor of the PIEP College of Fellows.  Presently he is a Founding Member and Trustee of the Philippine Green Building Council.

Dr. Asteya Santiago (LLB, Univ. of the Phils.; PhD, Univ. of Sydney)

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 Regulatory Division of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board and later as an administrator of the Intramuros Administration which was tasked to restore a historic site in Manila. She was also appointed by the President as member of the Board of Directors and later as Vice Chairman of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA)—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.

Dr. Renan Tanhueco (PhD. Urban and Regional Planning, Univ. of the Phils.)

Renan was a Task Leader/Land Use Planner in EMI’s  Risk Sensitive Land Use Planning project in Kathmandu Metropolitan City and in the Disaster Risk Management Master Planning project in Greater Mumbai. Renan has also worked with UNISDR, the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, and the Philippine Government in several projects on mainstreaming DRR in land use and infrastructure planning. He obtained his masters degree in civil engineering from Nagoya University in Japan, and his doctorate in urban and regional planning from the University of the Philippines.

Farouk Tebbal (MS Structural Eng'g., UC-Berkeley)

Farouk Tebbal held various positions for the Algerian Government in urban development and planning, including senior positions 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.

Dr. Noriel Tiglao (Dr. Eng'g., Tokyo Univ.)

Kenneth S. Topping (MS Pub. Ad., CSU)

Kenneth Topping is a Principal Investigator and Project Director for the Californnia State Hazard Mitigation Plan Revision Project being undertaken by California Polytechnic State University (CPSU) for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. He is also a lecturer at the CPSU and president of Topping Associates International, a city planning firm based in the US. He used to be the City Planning Director for the City of Los Angeles (1986-1991) and was Visiting Professor at Disaster Prevention Research Institute in Kyoto University, Japan.  Mr. Topping has pioneered innovations in city planning, citizen participation, economic development, GIS, local government management, infrastructure development, and natural resource conservation. He has held professional leadership roles, drafted legislation, written on a variety of topics, taught as an adjunct faculty member, and spoken at state, national and international conferences. He has been honored for these accomplishments through induction by the American Institute of Certified Planners as a Member of the College of Fellows (FAICP).