Dr. Frederick Krimgold specializes in disaster risk management including hazard and vulnerability assessment, mitigation design and implementation and mechanisms for financing of mitigation investment. He has worked in disaster management in developing countries over the past 30 years. He has been a researcher and research manager for the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program at the National Science Foundation and has served as a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Advisory Board. Dr. Krimgold has worked with the founding of the National Urban Search and Rescue System in the United States and the creation of the Disaster Management Facility at the World Bank.

Dr. Krimgold has a D.Tech. in Architecture and Planning from Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden and a BA in Architecture from Yale University.

John Bigger is an electrical engineer with over 30 years project and program management experience in the electric utility and energy fields. Mr. Bigger has 10 years of engineering experience, at increasing levels of responsibility, at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Twenty-one years managing energy technology research, development, demonstration, and integration projects at the Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, California. Mr. Bigger was part of a small group that created and then served as Technical Director of the Utility Photovoltaic Group, a not-for-profit organization to support the commercial use of photovoltaic systems by electric utilities in the U.S.

Mr. Bigger has a MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California and a BSc. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

 

Keith Critchlow brings 20 years experience in public communication, in motion pictures, advertising/marketing, and data/effects visualization. He negotiated and developed joint documentary productions amongst U.S., U.K. and Russian filmmaking teams for Taste of Freedom. For Ghosts of Cape Horn, he directed the coordinated documentary efforts of historic adversaries in Chile, Argentina and the Falkland Islands. His Stanford thesis project, The California Reich was nominated for an Oscar in 1976. Relevant marketing work includes image campaigns for Hilton Head Island, Sea Pines Plantation, freelance economic and tourism development writing for the Government of Chile and investor presentations for The Walt Disney Company.

Mr. Critchlow has graduate certificates in Social Psychology and Communications from the University of Minnesota Graduate School and Stanford University Graduate School, anda BA in Psychology from Yale University.

Natasha Udu-gama is a disaster risk management specialist. Her research interests include appropriate technologies for community-based disaster risk information systems in poor urban areas and information technologies for risk communication. Ms. Udu-gama has research and training experience in disaster management from the UK and India.

Ms. Udu-gama has an MSc. in Disaster Management from the Royal Military College of Science - Cranfield University, Shrivenham, UK and a BA in International Affairs and Development Studies from George Washington University, Washington, DC.

 

Dr. Michael Willingham is an energy and environmental analyst, with experience in policy, technology, educational program design, and professional training. His work experience includes the United Nations, USAID, the US Congress, the World Bank, the Peace Corps, the Navajo Tribe, and the private sector. Since April 2000, Dr. Willingham to the Virginia Tech Alexandria Research Institute as an Adjunct Professor. During this period he undertook an assignment with USAID Ukraine in a six-week exercise to evaluate the success of USAID energy programs in Ukraine over the preceding eight years. He served as Chief of Mission for three-week in-country mission, and as head of the mission report preparation team. In another consultative capacity, he participated in a USAID-sponsored mission to India as part of a mission team to assist the Government of India with policy aspects of sustainable energy development and greenhouse gas mitigation. Recently, he has worked to analyze post-disaster impacts of Hurricane Isabel (September 2003) in the electric power sector.

Dr. Willingham has both a MS and Ph.D. in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA and a BSc. in Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.