The Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union will take place in San Francisco, California, from 14 to 18 December 2015. The programme will cover many aspects of disaster risks including hazards.

The Director of the IRDR ICoE VaRM, Carolina Distinguished Professor Susan Cutter of the University of South Carolina was selected as the 2015 Gilbert White Lecturer of the AGU Natural Hazards Focus Group. Science Editor-in-Chief Marcia McNutt, after her 3 April 2015 editorial calling for better links between academia and the disaster-response community, proposed to broaden the AGU Focus Group on Natural Hazards to include disaster science. She argued to promote “interdisciplinary disaster scientists: researchers who focus on crises that severely disrupt the environment or threaten human health, and can apply scientific methods in a timely manner to understand how to prevent, mitigate, respond to, or recover from such events”.

Together with several colleagues, IUGG’s Alik Ismail-Zade organised a session to discuss integrated research on disasters and disaster risks (Session NH027: “Science for Disaster Risk Reduction: From Integrated Research and Assessment of Risks to Communication and Engagements”). Submit here to contribute to the session (deadline for abstract submission: 5 August 2015).

Among those planning to speak at the conference are: Marcia McNutt, Editor-in-Chief, Science magazine, and President-elect of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.; John Eichelberger, Dean of the Graduate School, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; Roger Pulwarty, Director, National Integrated Drought Information System, NOAA, Boulder; Brett Sanders, Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine. Gordon McBean, first chair of the IRDR Science Committee and current ICSU president, will receive the 2015 AGU Ambassador Award at the meeting.