Associate Professor Cheryl Desha

Winner - Individual Nominations

Cheryl Desha

Cheryl has been an integral part of the Office of the Inspector-General Emergency Management’s Research Advisory panel for several years, providing expert advice and guidance about how we can continue to connect disaster management research, researchers and practitioners to drive continuous improvement across the sector.  Cheryl embodies what it means to be a champion for change and she is a driving force behind the realisation of a Disaster Resilience Management Facility (DRMF) at Griffith University’s Nathan Campus.

Griffith University recently built the new $56 million Engineering, Technology and Aviation building “N79” at the Nathan Campus, which is expected to be officially opened soon. Cheryl has had a key role in influencing the design and construction of this building, which thanks to her input, now has the potential to serve as a catalyst for the coordination of disaster management and resilience research and training. 

The vision for this new building was inspired by Cheryl's realisation in 2016, of the need for better remote-collaboration spaces. During a visit with Professor Hiromichi Fukui, a global expert in Digital Earth research (Chubu Institute for Advanced Studies, International Society of Digital Earth Council Member), he shared the need for backup to respond to events such as the impending catastrophic Nankai megathrust earthquake that has a 70-80 per cent probability of happening in the next 30 years.

Responding to this call for action, in 2017, through Griffith University’s Cities Research Institute, Cheryl created a research theme cluster of colleagues to explore remote-led, local-community engaged disaster prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Under the banner of “Digital Earth and Resilient Infrastructure”, this includes exploring technological improvements for remote immersive collaboration through two prototype ‘DENs’, the provisioning of a Disaster Resilience and Management facility space that could be used for scenario planning, training, and disaster response, and research into place-based opportunities for enabling resilient communities and resilient infrastructure.

Key co-authored publications by the CRI Research Team:

Last Updated: 06 March 2020