Participatory Convergence - Start with the Why and the Who | 2026 ASP ColloquiumUCARConnect at NCAR

[music] We would love for you to do a deeper introduction of yourself, but I also want to start by saying it is my very great pleasure and with such a warm heart that I get to introduce Dr. Lorie Peak. She is a professor of sociology here at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She directs the natural hazard center which how many people are familiar with the hazard center? Okay, me some of you but not necessarily everyone. If you're not, I highly recommend looking into it. They do such amazing work, have built tremendous resources. They run a workshop every year that is cross-disciplinary, cross- sector, across career phases. I highly encourage you to go if you haven't been. Um, but Lori is also the PI of the Converge facility and you all were asked to read the peak at all 2020 paper which talks a lot about the converge efforts that they are doing and leading there and I would say Lor's really been out in front on this. She has been thinking about the role of convergence in the hazards community and I would say more generally in earth system science community for quite a long time. So it's a real honor that we get to hear from her today. Um, I would also say as important, if not more so than her scholarly contributions, Lori is like the kindest, most gracious, um, respectful, just lovely human who always leads with gratitude and kindness. And we talked a little bit about the importance of that yesterday. So, I just wanted to mention that Lori, she's been a real model for me and so many others in our community with doing this. So, with that, oh, one more thing I want to say. Masha asked a great question yesterday about the role of participatory research and how it intersects with convergence and I forgot to say yesterday Masha that Lori is on a paper where they talked about participatory convergence. So I hope you'll talk about that today. >> So with that um give me help me give Lori a warm welcome here this morning. Thank you so much. >> Thank you Julie. Thank you. And when Julie shares those words um that she says are about me, I feel like they're actually a mirror that is a reflection of who she is. And so a huge thanks to Julie and Mariana and Suda for the months of work that went into bringing us together. I cannot believe how fortunate we are to be in this room. And can [clears throat] you join me in a round of applause for our organizers, our intellectual leaders, all organizers doesn't even begin to capture it. And I also want to say what an honor it is to be in the room with all of you. I assume that they shared some with you yesterday and even in your acceptance letter about how competitive this was this year that there were so many extraordinary applications that we know so many people could have benefited from this experience. your unique backgrounds, expertise, passions, outlooks, and readiness to do this kind of deep convergence work really led to all of you being in this room. And one of our traditions at the Natural Hazard Center is we don't start a meeting without hearing every voice in the room. And this is really important at the Natural Hazard Center because we recognize that everybody regardless of career stage has something important to share, has a story, has a perspective, has a wisdom that we want to bring in to the room. And so to that end, I would like to begin this lecture today with every voice in the room. And so I'm going to start with you. What is your name? Bethany, I recognize your face because I read all of your bios and was inspired and some of you I just saw weeks ago or like share a cubicle with. And so, um, I would love it if you would say two words to bring every voice in the room. your first name and one word that captures how you felt when you received the acceptance that you were going to be in this colloquium. Bethany, will you role model for us two words and two words only because we only have an hour and 15 minutes. >> And excited. >> That was three words. However, Bethany went first [laughter] and was a pioneer and so we will give her a round of thanks >> and now she will be followed by >> Caroline surprised >> back to you excited. Mera jazz. Sam excited. Masha ready. >> Vanessa gratitude. >> Arma grateful. >> Carolene grief. >> Kaylee appreciative. >> Atlantis shocked. [laughter] >> Heli relieved. Christine Pont Marina Joyed. Finally, >> was perfect. Okay. >> Um, excited. Colin and Allison, I'm going to switch it up for you two a little bit as the keynotes first names and emotion you felt or or what you felt when you received the invitation to be a keynote. >> Colin honored [clears throat] >> Allison curious. >> Yes, >> Alexandra. Um, excited. And last but not least, Julie and Suda and Mariana, will you share first names and one word that captures what you felt when you received news that this was funded? >> Mariana excited. [laughter] >> Julie heartwarm also. [laughter] Finally like that. Round of applause everybody. You did that. Thank you. And in the sound booth, I don't know if I can hear you, but hi. Thank you for doing this for us, both of you. I didn't even see there were two of you up there. So, thanks for making all this possible. And um I, as Julie said, I am a sociologist. And so I actually did my PhD here at the University of Colorado Boulder and I graduated in 2005 which seems like the blink of an eye ago and so it's hard to believe it was actually 21 years ago. And um so I graduated from here and then I went up the road to Colorado State University where I was an assistant to an associate professor and then I came back here to Boulder in 2017 to join the faculty in sociology but also to direct the natural hazard center. So I know three of you were at the natural hazards workshop this summer. Was anybody else at the natural hazards? Oh I there were 700 of you. So, forgive me if I didn't immediately say hello. And so, for 51 years, the Natural Hazard Center has had this special responsibility of serving as the National Science Foundation designated information clearing house for the societal dimensions of hazards and disasters. And the natural hazard center actually grew out of the first assessment of natural hazards, which I know several of you raise your hand if you're a geographer or have a geography degree. I it was amazing how many of you had geography backgrounds in your disciplinary listings. So Gilbert Fowler White, who's largely known as the father of floodplane management, uh known across the nation for he was the architect of the national flood insurance program. He also led the first assessment of natural hazards in the United States which was at the behest of the National Science Foundation to take stock of what we've learned in the natural hazards field and then to make specific recommendations to inform a research agenda. And one of the key takeaways of the first assessment is that we know more than we've ever known before about what is driving natural hazards losses. yet they are continuing to rise. Those words were written in 1975. How true are they today in 2026? And so the assessment offered several recommendations, many of them generated by graduate students, including one who was my mentor at the Natural Hazard Center and a professor of sociology. He was a graduate student on the first assessment. And one of the recommendations that the grad students generated was they said, "Well, if we know more than we ever known before, yet disaster losses are still on the rise. We need a clearing house. We need an institution in the nation that would bring together the researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who are concerned with reducing the harm and suffering from disasters. And we need essentially an institution that would nurture those communities and bring them together. That's where the idea for the natural hazards workshop was actually born. And as Julie said, it's cross-d discipline, crossorgganization, cross hazard because it's about bringing people together. And so when Julie so kindly said that I've been sort of one of the one of the initial voices in the hazards field really advocating for bringing in this convergence perspective is because it is truly in my DNA. I came to the Natural Hazard Center, which I hope you will be able to come over and visit when you were here. It used to sit at um 1345 Grand View Avenue at the intersection of Broadway and University. And um the library sat right across from the Hazard Center. And I didn't know it. I walked into the Natural Hazard Center on August 19th, 1999. I was 25 years old. I was getting ready to start my graduate studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and I'd been hired as a research assistant at the Natural Hazard Center and I walked in those doors and on that first day I met Gilbert White, I met Dennis Mleti, I met Mary Fran Meyers, I met the whole team of the Natural Hazard Center and I didn't know that moment on August 19th, 1999. That was the moment my life was cast in concrete. There hasn't been a day since that day in August that I haven't thought about hazards and haven't thought about disasters, that I haven't thought about the human causes of those events and consequences and also what we could do about it, not as individuals, but as communities coming together. And so that is really going to be what this talk is about today. How do we come together just as you're coming together in this room in the work that we do? Never losing sight of what is at stake with the work we do. Everything from people's lives to people's livelihoods to their homes and far beyond. And so, as with all things, it is so important that we start with our why. But as a sociologist, I'm also going to argue starting with the who is fundamentally important. So in order to think about convergence which is the topic of this particular foundational lecture following on camp compound hazards. So thinking about any key concept in any really trying to understand the sociology of science I think it's important to really have historical marker moments. And so I actually want to begin today really at the turn of this century. And so in the early 2000s what started to happen was that the nationalmies of sciences engineering and medicine in concert with the national science foundation started to support a series of studies around the topic of convergence and attempting to advance this new approach to research. And so this really culminated in a series of foundational publications including nationalmy's reports, books, journal articles and other seinal foundational works that really laid out this idea of convergence. And one definition of many that exists for convergence that was published in this 2014 National Research Council report that was sort of taking stock of the convergence literature define convergence this way as an approach to problem solving that cuts across disciplinary boundaries. It integrates knowledge, tools and ways of thinking from life and health sciences, physical, mathematical and computational sciences, engineering disciplines and beyond to form a comprehensive synthetic framework for tackling scientific and societal challenges that exist at the interface of multiple fields. When you look at that definition, think about your own disciplines. Raise your hand if your discipline isn't captured in that definition. And these are broad disciplinary buckets, but if your discipline isn't captured, if you're in the and beyond, what's your discipline that's not captured? >> Relations, international relations, social psychology, >> sociology, and so there's no naming of the social sciences in here. in the and beyond just flagging that for we'll return to that shortly. So with embedded in that definition and the many many other similar early definitions that were put forth there were these two primary characteristics that Julie and colleagues outline in their foundational uh priming materials for this colloquium. And so really the two primary characteristics of convergence and what sets convergence apart from traditional interdisciplinary scholarship is that it is indeed interdisciplinary and to be convergent it requires deep integration across disciplines but it also must be problem focused and solutionsbased. And so much of our research is about characterizing problems. that may be interdisciplinary, but it's that also that added layer of having the solutions orientation that really makes research convergent. So, it's those those operating characteristics that make research convergent. So, fast forward a bit to 2016. In 2016, the National Science Foundation declared their 10 big ideas that were meant to guide investments in science and engineering to advance our national scientific enterprise. And they also argued that these were the areas that were really at the frontiers of the work that's either happening in the N or that needs to happen in the nation. And so growing convergence research was one of those 10 big ideas that the National Science Foundation named. And so of the 10 big ideas, they were actually divided into what the NSF referred to as research ideas. And so there were six big research ideas that they argued were about advancing foundational fundamental scientific and engineering research. So these were ideas like research at the interface of uh human beings and technological systems. And so thinking about like what are the big ideas the next big research that needs to be conducted. But then interestingly and importantly in their 10 big ideas call they also c categorize four additional big ideas that they called enabling ideas. And I love that they did this because all too often in science it's as if science happens by magic, right? Like it just like you get a grant and then all of the sudden before you know it there's like your 10 seminal publications have been published, right? And so the enabling ideas, they were really about improving the way that science is actually conducted. And so growing convergence research was one of those enabling ideas that was about enabling and building systems. You all are sitting here in part as a consequence of that commitment to enabling and building systems because enabling and building systems is about not physical infrastructure which is where a lot of our tax dollars go to investments in things like earthquake shake tables or walls of wind that allow us to text test physical infrastructure. You are here in part because of an investment in the social infrastructure, the hidden networks and capabilities that allow us to do science and to do it well. And so that's what an enabling idea and what growing convergence research is really about. It's about all of you and about training and mentoring and enabling scientists and engineers to do work in different more integrated ways than had been true in the past. And so four key elements of convergence that are really important to think about whenever you are designing convergent projects. And so those four elements include the why. And so again, always start with the why. And so the why is all about what is the big what's the grand challenge the thorny societal or scientific issue that is so complex that no one discipline social psychology geography sociology risk communication no one discipline could characterize understand that problem on its own. So there's a big a big why that's leading and then there's the who. So we understand what's our big problem. Is it water scarcity? Is it rising disaster losses? Is it compounding and cascading hazards and their impacts on schools and health care systems? So what's the big grand societal challenge? And then who do we need in the room in terms of disciplines, organizations, diversity of perspective, experience, background in order to best characterize that problem, but ultimately to develop solutions to it. Then there's the how, the enabling processes, the approaches, even the methods to do this work. And then there's the what. And so the outcomes of the work. Is it an intervention, a public health intervention? Is it a technological solution to a grand engineering challenge? Is it a a coalitions that need to be formed in order to mobilize people to address the challenges? So there's the what. Now for a moment I want to focus per the topic of this talk and the desire to be bring participatory convergence into the room. I want to linger for a minute on the why and the who? And so first a question. How many of you are from the Midwest or currently live in the Midwest or the South? Live in a place that might be encompassed in tornado alley. Where are you from? >> Oh my, the heart of it all. [clears throat] Okay. And so why? Let's pick one problem. There are countless problem. Let's pick one problem. So about 17 million people in these United States live in so-called tornado alley, even though of course tornadoes occur outside of that dreaded um domain. About 17 million people live in tornado alley, many of whom reside in housing that is not built to withstand extreme wind as a mean knows well. This is especially true for working class or poor people who may not have access to proper shelter. So sheltering options and who are living in mobile homes where the likelihood of death has been shown to be somewhere between 15 to 20 times more than for typical residential construction. That's broad brush strokes a big problem that many people in this country are thinking deeply about but not enough. So now here's the question for all of you. I want to take 30 seconds and if you have a writing implement or a laptop in front of you I would like you in the next 30 seconds I want you to answer this question. So if we really want to understand at the root this problem is about people are dying in tornadoes. These are avoidable deaths. I would like to argue that these are avoidable deaths. And thank you for the nod from my Oklahoma friend. So this is the problem. These are avoidable deaths. But then who who needs to be involved in truly characterizing the scope of the problem? Why are people dying if they're actually avoidable? So who needs to be involved? And then who needs to be involved in developing potential solutions? So, let's take 30 seconds to respond to that. Okay, as they would say, pens up, eyes up. Okay, we're going to do a little experiment here, a little popcorn. Um, I'm going to just point at somebody and I want you to share one one one group or entity, whoever it was that you wrote down on your list and only one of the who that you think should be involved in characterizing the problem andor developing the solution. And we're gonna keep doing this until we run out of people. And so I'm gonna start. I'm gonna pretend that I'm calling on myself. [clears throat] Structural engineers. Note that I called on the structural engineer so he couldn't say. Structural engineers, policy makers. Okay. Oh. Um, city councilors or municipal leadership. Um, elder uh vulnerable [clears throat] communities, >> everyone, >> whoever is in charge with figuring out minimum wage, [laughter] >> researchers, >> home resist. >> Sorry, good. Okay. [laughter] Okay. Okay. >> National Weather Service. >> Okay. And local community leaders. >> Emergency management. >> Uh local home manufacturers. >> Um psychologist. >> Uh the people living there experiencing the hazard. >> Broadcasting neurologist. Mhm. Hospitals, >> emergency aid, NGS, >> I'm out. >> Okay, we're out. >> Local forecasters like the broadcasters. >> Similar like communication specialists, >> working class, [clears throat] >> uh witnesses, >> emergency manager. to this quadrant over here. Did you have anybody on your list that you did not hear? Faith community faith community schools, government, >> other countries or governments might be experiencing >> other countries. The lessons we could learn, >> other communities that have experienced this before as well, >> construction companies. financial organizations. >> That that was amazing. Every single sector, demographic group, institutional, organizational, financial stakeholder, government stakeholder that you all named. They all have a stake in this. They all have knowledge. They all have wisdom. How do we do this and do this well? And how we often do this is not what we just did here because it's hard. It's costly. It's incredibly timeconsuming. Sure can be humbling and lots of other reasons that we don't do what you just all did. But what you also just revealed is in part one of the reasons that avoidable deaths continue to happen in this nation is because we're attempting to solve these problems oftentimes in isolation. And so we're going to be thinking about today how we can maybe do that different and you're already thinking beautifully. Okay. And so 2018 coming back to our sort of marker moments. So in 2018 I was invited to write a proposal to the National Science Foundation to join the much broader natural hazards engineering research infrastructure for the nation and the NERI facilities. There are actually 13 that are across the nation that are led by engineers that are working on resilient solutions to natural hazards problems including earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other severe uh weather extremes. And so this shared use facility network for the nation had been stood up. And in 2018 when I was invited to write a proposal around this, I'd read a lot about NSF's big ideas. And so this is kind of a cue to all of you. Pay attention to fun priorities. Also pay attention to your heart and who you are and what you care about. And for me, it was like such a natural I care deeply about the problems that natural hazards researchers are trying to address. I love nothing more than seeing members of our community come together and ignite and enlighten one another and ultimately strengthen what they were doing. And so this all informed writing the converge proposal. What also informed writing the proposal. So I flagged in that initial definition that I put up earlier that social sciences were not named in these early convergence publications which were primarily led by engineers, mathematicians, biomed scientists and others who were indeed working at the frontiers of science and engineering. But later publications acknowledged that the social sciences as well as people in the humanities who were working on ethical issues and other concerns, they were largely left out of the so-called convergence revolution. That the convergence revolution was predominantly being led by capital P, capital S physical scientists, again mathematicians and engineers. But as the convergence revolution continued to progress, there was more and more recognition of the the fundamental need to involve people from other disciplines with other ways of knowing, especially in order to address these grand challenges. And so that was really one of the anchors around which converge was established. And so there are three key motivations for converge that I want to share with all of you because I think a lot of times as scientists and engineers we don't talk enough about what is actually motivating our work and I think it's really important to speak to that and so first one of the things that motivates the work of converge and the work that I do is this fundamental recognition that hazards and disaster research demand ands multid-disiplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. And so it's very much sort of ripe for this kind of convergent perspective. And this is in part because we know that disasters occur at the interface of our natural environment, our earth systems and our geoysical systems, but also at the interface of our built environment, our social and economic systems and our technological systems. And so this is where disaster occurs. And Colin, I have to say, we made this graphic like four years ago for a special issue on interdisciplinary methods. And I was like, I have to update this so it better shows compound and cascading a co-occurring disasters because that is the age in which we are living. And so thank you for all I've already you've helped me to think about. And so disasters occur at these interfaces and that therefore draws in these different disciplines. We also know that of course disasters span geographic and cultural and social and economic context and they also span radically different time scales. When we start thinking about the root causes of risk that that are in the buildup to the disaster itself and then trying to understand the emergency response window all into these long-term recovery periods that we now know stretch not just months or even years may stretch decades or even translate into intergenerational trauma. And so these kinds of these scales and contexts demand these kind of multidisciplinary perspectives. But the fact is say for this brilliant room that most researchers continue to be educated. We know this is true that most of us continue to be educated in a so-called unidisciplinary manner where the expectation when I got a PhD in sociology which I'm very glad to be a card carrying sociologist but was that I would work for six solid years to increase my depth of knowledge in that particular discipline. But the fact of the matter is that as we start moving into these complex problem spaces, it really requires a multidisciplinary which is where perspective which is where the hazard field started to evolve in the 1950s when field teams started to go out that engaged multid-disiplinary teams of social scientists that involve for example psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and economists who went out together. So remember we can integrate within disciplinary categories too. Similarly in engineering their field teams would go out with geoteex and structural and civil and environmental engineers to understand problems. And then in the 70s, we started to see more and more field teams in the hazards research area that would involve engineers, social scientists, public health researchers, and others who were characterizing the problems. Over time, however, there have been more and more calls and arguments that again, if we're going to best characterize and understand problems and also address them, that we need to move more and more into those interdisiplinary and transdisciplinary spaces. So again, in looking at your bios, which thank you for adding the disciplines to those, I'd like by a show of hands, when you think about your own either completed graduate training or your current inrogress training, just by a show of hands, how many of you would put yourself in the unid disciplinary that you were trained in a unidisciplinary manner? >> Only two of us. Wow. And I guess I was quasi because I was like a research assistant at the hazard center which really like ignited and exposed me to all the other disciplines. But in my core discipline, I was 100% trained unidisiplinary. Okay, next show of hands. Who thinks that your graduate training completed or ongoing would you characterize as multi-disciplinary? [clears throat] Okay. All right. interdisciplinary and then transdisciplinary who is like really in oh okay give us some exact what's a transdisciplinary education in food energy water systems and I have a very gracious grad committee that's you know even though I'm in engineering water resources that's been has a deep history of transdisiplinary work. So it's kind of an easier space to fall into that. >> Yeah. And the food, energy, water systems like >> allows this sort of topical integration. What's your inter or transdisiplinary program of study? >> Thank you. I like the fact that you said I'm in the food, energy, water, and exos, but beyond that, I have a background in both art and science, you know. So that gives me opportunity to to move between art, science, even commerce. My first graduate degree is in philosophy, pure philosophy. And then when I got to Regon State, I did applied ethics looking at environment, food from ethical perspective. And then I did my third masters in environmental science. >> Now I'm in in an engineering program. So I combine all of these things into the food, energy, water, nexus. Okay. >> Using system thinking, you know, as a system looking at it from a system perspective. >> Wow. I think you two should be friends. >> Okay. I'll just sum that up to say you what a renaissance person you are. That's amazing. And so, and it's also amazing in this room, you know, how quickly educational systems are really. I know there's a lot of dialogue about sort of how slow to change educational systems are but this is really obviously we have a biased sample here but this is really extraordinary to see um the depth and scope of this room. Okay. So second motivation for converge is that I would I argue that disaster researcher because because of the nature of the work that we do, we must be prepared, we must be trained and we must be educated to work in collaborative collaborative teams. And this is in part because disasters actually serve a forcing function that because disasters do occur at the interface of naturalbuilt technical and social and economic systems that they by their very nature when disasters culminate they force teams together oftentimes into the field and these different ways of seeing and knowing. And so it's important that researchers are trained in this regard both to encourage breakthroughs. One of the things that Marcia Mcnut who just uh was the former director of the US Geological Survey and she just finished her tenure as the president of the Nationalmies of Sciences. One of the things that she argues in a really important 2017 paper on convergence is that in the field of uh geocciences in particular that convergent light research has actually led to these fundamental breakthroughs and she's speaking specifically to work that's happened after earthquakes where engineers and social scientists and risk communication experts and others have gone out and they've lit literally observed how the built environment performed, but also how people were or were not, for example, injured in the context of the built environment. And that has led to these fundamental breakthroughs in terms of building codes and standards in terms of risk communication technologies like how we communicate earthquake early warning in this nation. And so those sorts of things were only possible those breakthroughs because of we increasingly in the geocciences in the 70s started moving into these increasingly multid-disiplinary spaces. But the reason that McNut calls it convergentlike is because she argues that we sort of stalled out that it was like the engineer went out with the sociologist and we looked at things together but we stayed in our disciplinary silos. And so she argues if we're really going to have the next big breakthroughs that we have to go into these interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary spaces in which all of you are more familiar. It's also important that we be trained and prepared to work in these sorts of collaborative teams. I would argue in to the ethics of doing disaster research because it is a particularly sensitive environment and there is the potential for ethical breaches, ethical missteps that have been well documented in communities where people have been overburdened. For example, after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami when over a 100,000 people perished in Bond aceache, the governor of Bond Ache compared researchers to gorillas applying hitandrun tactics because they felt that researchers had come in, they had extracted data and they hadn't been attentive to community needs. And this is something that can be addressed. It can be addressed through centering ethical principles through thinking about how we can work effectively together in teams so that we communicate and collaborate and don't overburden already affected communities. And so it is again about those scientific breakthroughs, but it's also being mindful always of the ethical sensitivities of the work that we do to avoid those sorts of breaches and potential breakdowns between community leaders and other stakeholders as and the research community. Okay. Third motivation is that one of the fundamental arguments once converge was up and running as a facility. One of the things that I started to talking talking to other social scientists who were leading other big convergent hubs including Julie and including other researchers who had these big NSF convergence grants and we started to think about what is it that the social sciences now that we're getting much more fully integrated into this convergence revolution and actually leading some of the efforts not just being added on. What what is different? what's the potential additive value of this kind of integration? And so one of the arguments that over time that we've made is that this kind of convergent research that it needs to be co-developed across disciplines, which was the focus of those foundational publications, but also with the people who are most exposed to risk, which we heard that well when we did the around the room. Okay. And so one of the things in a recent article that I co-authored with four other um uh lead investigators of National Science Foundation funded convergent projects that we argue in that was that despite its real promise and obviously convergence has some real staying power and transformative power. So despite all these promises that what happened in that those early foundational statements is that when they did include notes on the how that third box that I put up earlier on the how of doing convergence most of it was about how we work across disciplines which is understandable because it's hard we have different epistemologies different languages different methodologies and ways ways of fundamental ways of knowing that make working across disciplinary boundaries really hard in more traditional and siloed settings. And so there's been a lot of ink spilled to try to figure out how to do that and do it well. But what that means is that there's been much less attention on that sort of participatory access as aspect of this. How do we work with the communities most affected? And so who asked the question about the participatory Thank you. What drove you to ask that question yesterday about the participatory methods and engagement? >> Um, I mean, it's my background. So, before grad school, I worked um in a nonprofit law firm that did what I would call like movement law or participatory law. Um, which was really cool and um it was like really integrated into how like the the cases that we took on and it was very driven by like relationships with community members. So um I would love to yeah see that in the and I know that there's a lot of work around that in the scientific world but I wanted to see how that could show up in this space as well. >> Well and I'm happy to tell you it is finally really showing up and only over the last couple years and that is amazing and um I just want to pause and say I am humbled once again to um have the opportunity to stand in front of all of you and to speak. One of the things when I was in grad school, one of my mentors said to me was that um if someone gives you the chance to speak that you should take it and you should take it with all your heart. You should think about what you want to say and what you want to share, but also what you want to learn, but you should do it. If somebody gives you the chance to stand, you should do it. And so I just want to say I'm really honored to get to have this chance to stand, but again humbled because I'm the one standing up here and talking in front of you, but I also want really want to acknowledge the knowledge and expertise and wisdom that you're all bringing in this room. And that is amazing that you did that work before grad school. Did anybody name legal processes as part of our earlier activity on the avoidable deaths from tornadoes? Let's [clears throat] add that to the list. And we've learned the courts of law are incredibly important in terms of upholding our regulatory infrastructure in this nation. Okay. And so two big points on this that I want to make. One that you read in the article um that the team assigned in advance of this. So the first is that we know that no matter how multi-disiplinary, interdisiplinary, transdisciplinary our team is that if we go off and if we develop these so-called solutions in isolation, even if we're working across our disciplinary boundaries, if we are not working with the people who are likely going to be affected by the solutions that this can cause real harm. And so the case that I give in the convergence paper that I've continued to follow really closely is related to the retrofits in the city of Portland which is where I was yesterday and boy how did they need it. They have they have so many schools that are unreinforced masonry that they have bridg that they know are going to collapse when the big earthquake happens there. I mean it is just it is a terrifying um feeling and they are trying to get progress around these big issues of unreinforced masonry buildings in particular um but but the progress is slow um and the the issue is urgent and so question are any of you in here from Portland or Oregon? You are my Renaissance person. And so, um, Portland, why I use this case is because I think it's a particularly good case of really thinking about even when the best most well-intentioned scientists and engineers come together to characterize a problem. So, they they know where every single un unreinforced masonry building is in Portland. They know where the non-ductile concrete, put simply, fragile buildings, flimsy buildings. They know where they're located. They know where the risk is most extreme in that city. And with full hearts and full minds developed a program that was essentially going to displace members of the black and African-American community who already had long legacies of historic racism, oppression, and systemic exclusion in that city. And so they developed these programs with the avoidable deaths and the lifesaving interventions that they wanted to create. But without having the full suite of stakeholders in the room, what happened was they tried to roll out that initiative that was going to displace disproportionately displace black residents of Portland from their homes, from their churches, and other places of worship, and from other key community centers. and the community rose up and said no we are not going to be displaced once again by government and then this whole initiative was really stalled that I think with the proper bringing in all the voices and all the segments of community that this could have unfolded in such a different way in that community and it is now thankfully things are progressing again in the community but not without harm term and already damaged trust and already existing issues being exacerbated. So that's one reason why this matters. Second is because we know that for problem solving. So that's what again convergence we're trying to characterize a problem but also solve it. It really requires that innovations be understood, accepted and used by both the researchers. So for us to get the buy in also the communities that are oftent times the site of these interventions but also an an addition I want to put on here. So a couple of you when we did that activity earlier I think two of you said the manufactured homebuilders. Who was it who said that? Why' you think of that? uh because they're aware that this problem exists and because there's no legal or financial >> are you an engineer? >> No, I'm not a geographer. >> Where do you go to school? >> University of New Mexico. >> Okay. So um that that was beautifully articulated and why I added this because I think in our field we talk a lot about disaster risk reduction. We don't talk enough about risk creation what you just articulated who is actually creating or accelerating the root cause of risk. And if we leave that out of our equation, the disaster losses are going to keep outrunning us no matter how comprehensive, how participatory our solutions really are. And so I actually want to tell a positive story about that last note there. And so Elena Sutley, who knows Elena? She's an engineer at the University of Kansas, absolutely amazing, trained in a deeply interdisciplinary way. She brings in socioeconomic characteristics into all of her research. and she was re recently doing in partnership with Texas Tech some testing of mobile and manufactured homes and she was very savvy because she wants to solve this problem. And so she started doing kind of these social media posts and newsletters where she was sharing these full scale what are called full-scale tests where they were literally putting manufactured homes in these wind structures which mean will have to correct me later when I'm using the wrong words because he knows all the right words but she was doing these fullcale tests and she was trying to capture the attention of not just the research community not just the people living at risk but also the manufactured home makers. because they are all the things that you just said. They're aware of the risk. They're not sure of the cost benefit of reducing the risk. And so she started pushing this out. The two largest, do you know there's one mobile home manufacturer in the United States that's actually responsible for constructing 60% of our mobile homes. She got their attention. And so they actually tuned in. They watched the live stream of the test that she was doing in partnership with Texas Tech and several other universities and government partners. And now they have a collaboration. How powerful is that? No matter how many low-income working-class communities at risk that they work with, whether to build tornado shelters, if they don't get that industry sector on board, we're going to keep having those avoidable losses. And so it's this kind of framework that we're trying to assert with the participatory convergence because convergence without that participatory piece and with that holistic thinking of what do we mean about participatory convergence we're going to miss a piece of the puzzle and I'll fully admit as a sociologist I was not trained I was not trained to think about these sort of economic systems and drivers that are oftentimes like right there or the political or legal drivers that are like right there. I'm thinking about the social systems. And so this is why it's so important for us to come together. Okay. So now two other big marker moments. So in 2024, the ENCAR convergence science program was established right here at this magical I will even call this what a sacred place for climate science in our nation. and with under the able leadership of Julie Demouth who also you know this is only 25% of her day job she also has a rest of a day job and night job and a weekend job and all the kinds of jobs under her leadership that they specifically establish this program right here under social science deep interdisciplinary leadership to to really focus on those earth system um science problems and then here we are right now in 2026 with all of you in this room. How magical is this? And so I want to look what I did. I inserted a word into our title, y'all. And so I I would like to We're now beyond boundaries training Earth system scientists and engineers in participatory convergence research for compound hazard resilience. And so here's what I I want to wrap up on today is really the core argument that I hope I've been weaving for all of you and then to bring you a little bit of the converge resources that I hope can be useful for you. And so with my whole being I am committed to this idea that we need to work together more closely together. We need to accelerate our convergence across [clears throat] our disciplines, but also working with the people who are at the ep the literal and figurative epicenters of the riskcapes that we're trying to understand and to help to move forward with evidence-based solutions. And this is critical if we're going to address these grand challenges that are confronting humanity. And so a few things around this that again echoing from the paper that you read and why I think this kind of participatory approach that centers ethics and ethical principles is so important is because many scientists and engineers have acknowledged that we have progressed so far in the science and engineering that where we're at right now in this moment. Why we're not progressing with the solutions that are already out there is because of the moral, ethical, political, and social barriers that we're experiencing that are halting the breakthroughs. And so some of the things about this that are really important to think about is that when we think about the environmental challenges that are at the center of so much of the work that we are doing, these are indeed problems for society. They're causing deaths, injury, damages, dollars lost, displacement, increasing displacement for people. But they're also problems of society. And this is where whenever you talk to a social scientist, they will at some point hit you with the root causes of disaster. That disasters are rooted in issues like this. Poverty, racism, colonialism, population growth, unsustainable development, lack of building codes and standards or lack of enforcement of existing or adoption of existing building codes and standards and a mindset that prioritizes profit over people. These are problems of society. And so this is the thing that even if we say we've solved that problem, we actually do have a technical fix to a particular problem whether it be sea level rise or why manufactured homes are being torn apart in tornadoes that we know that there isn't actually an easy technical fix because the adoption and implementmentation oftentimes it's the complex social problems that are at the root of the losses. And so that's why I argue we need a social fix to these issues. And some of the things that are really important to call out in this because we are scientists, we are engineers, we do care about precision, we care about facts, and we care about evidence. And that means that we need to care about the fact that sometimes when we don't work together, we may actually get the problem that we're trying to characterize wrong. We may be wrong in what we're trying to do or slightly less right than we could be otherwise. And so I think this is really important to call out and uplift because sometimes we think we've characterized the problem and we've made the solution but we actually are only seeing this when we need to be seeing this so we develop this. Now on the other hand when we do work together across disciplines and with communities this is when we can gain a clearer understanding of problems while advancing more just and equitable solutions. So just yesterday I was in Portland, Oregon for this big um it was an engineering meeting around how what post- disaster reconnaissance is going to look like after the big one hits the west coast of the United States. And one of the things that one of the uh government officials who was there talked about that they have a priority list for buildings that they will assess after an earthquake. They know that many buildings will be assessed, especially buildings, highrises and other uh structures that are owned by corporate firms because they have engineers on retainer. And those engineers will come out, they will assess the building and then they'll either assign it a green tag, a yellow tag or a red tag. And I raised my hand and I said, "But okay, what about the buildings that don't have the engineer on retainer? how did they get on the priority list? And they said, "Well, we kind of have a list." And that list will most likely be developed after the disaster. It's sort of like if a catastrophic events happens in your community, do you want the list of anything being developed after the disaster? You want it being developed before. And one of the things that I observed after the Christ Church earthquake when I had the chance, it was a transformational experience in my own early stage career. I had a chance to travel with a large team of civil, structural and environmental engineers and then there were three social scientists and we were looking or I was looking in particular because of my interest in socially vulnerable populations at infrastructure that was serving the most vulnerable and I went to um and I met with several leaders of battered women shelters in the Christurch area and one of the things that I learned from those leaders is that they were the last to be assessed in terms of their building and their infrastructure. They were last both for safety reasons because oftentimes, for obvious reasons, battered women shelters are not on public lists because stalkers and abusers can find those buildings. So, there's already sort of this hidden nature of that infrastructure. They didn't have relationships with emergency managers or engineers to get on any priority list. The women and children who were in these buildings, they reported to me that they were traumatized because they could literally see cracks in the wall. And every single day, they were making a decision. Am I going to die in this building if there's an aftershock or am I going to die if I go back to my home where we were living because that's the only other place I have and that's going to push me back into the arms of an abuser. When I had a chance to work with that engineering team, my respect for them grew through the roof. I had no idea that engineers go out after major disasters like that and they voluntarily do damage assessments. So they go out and they move through the community so they can tag those buildings and help owners including homeowners as well as business owners, school leaders to know whether that building's green, safe, yellow, maybe not, or red needs to be closed. And they go out and they do that in a voluntary way. I learned so much from them. I think what they learned from having a social scientist on the team was thinking about who do those buildings serve and who gets on that priority list. We all have a responsibility to ask those kinds of questions, right? If that's where our mind goes and to share our learnings that we have. And so this is the call to change our title to insert participatory. And so in our paper on participatory convergence and we think it's the third paper an SR who is a Puerto Rican scholar she introduced this idea of participatory convergence in a 2024 paper and then Laura Castro Diaz followed up in two additional papers one of which I had the opportunity to join where we develop the concepts and guiding principles for participatory convergence. And we argue that for convergence to be participatory, it must be people centered, ethical and fair and also fulfilling those characteristics of convergence that I started this talk with that is problem focused, solutions based and deeply interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary. And so in the paper we outline seven key principles for doing participatory convergence research. And so the overarching principles that are related to convergence itself involve ensuring that it's problem focused and solutions-based. But then we divide this into what we call researchoriented principles. And so that brings in that the research must be deep and integrated. It also must be community engaged. And we recognize community is a complex word and community can mean a lot of different things both geographic, non-geographic, cultural, contextual, etc. But thinking deeply about what community means and how we engage the communities that need to be engaged based on the problem we are trying to characterize and solve, equitable and just. Because without a principle of fairness at the center of what we do within our teams and within our work the work is not going to ultimately succeed involving action and reflection again both within the team and based on the processes. So here we're moving into the actionoriented principles. It must be sustainable and also significant in terms of its impact and movement forward in terms of both science driving questions but also the societal solutions that we're trying to advance. And so in our most recent paper we explain each of those principles in depth and we also go into that how and into the outcomes piece of the four characteristics of convergence or four elements. And so just to bring this to a close and so what are we trying to do at converge that is convergent and participatory our roadmap for the work that we do it involves identifying training connecting and supporting researchers this is really at the core of our mission and this is also again this recognition in the cellular DNA that it requires this connection to each other and a commitment to systemic change in terms of how we do disaster research. That's why the investment in the social infrastructure, the invisible webs that bind us together are so important. These moments like these and so first and foremost again people centered. And so it's both about identifying many of us has seen these sort of you know escalating dollar losses from disasters which I think this is probably an order of magnitude off because we are not even beginning to count what disasters actually do to people and communities but we need to identify the patterns across these disasters in terms of who's most affected and why. And we also within converge want to identify who are the researchers who are doing the work who could help again characterize and understand those crosscutting issues that we see across disaster across disaster across disaster and then bring those researchers together to work together. We also train and so how many of you in here have ever done a converge training module? Oh >> on your list. >> It's on your list. I hope you will check out we've developed a series of training modules through converge. We now have 13 that are live. How many of you teach classes or will teach classes soon as grad students? So over 17,000 people have completed these Converge training modules. Most of them are students. We work great in courses. And why we are concerned with training is because one thing I've seen in my 26 years in this field is that we keep learning the same lessons over and over and over across disasters. And it's important replication and repetition is important for the advancement of science. But we also know that if we come in to each fresh disaster and we don't have a sense of all that has come before, we don't have a chance to advance the field. And because hazards and disaster research is very eventdriven, many people are drawn into this field because a big disaster happens in their community that they may not know that there are decades there's decades of research that's come behind that could help inform all that's to come before. And so those training modules are about trying to clarify the key principles of this type of research. And then we're committed again to connecting people across disciplines. So we bring together a series of extreme events research and reconnaissance networks that are both connecting researchers within disciplines but then also across disciplines. So we can do this kind of convergent work across our communities. And what we do through Converge, we really we are not about imposing, but we're about encouraging communication, coordination, and collaboration. And so we're lessening the burden on communities through coordinating and encouraging collaboration in teams while also improving the science for the benefit of society. And that's where the support for the researchers comes in as well as the community. So, we prioritize disasteraffected researchers and atrisisk communities. We promote equitable local partnerships and we actually fund convergent research. So, if you haven't checked out the hazard center and converge, I hope you will check it out because we actually have federally funded research award programs that we administer and we love funding graduate students. And so, I want to end this talk with your why. And so one of the fundamental things I bet many of you have heard from your mentors and if you haven't I hope you're going to echo it throughout these two weeks together. It is so important to start with your why in research and your why is oftentimes it's your question. It's the question that keeps you up at night. Why are schools in this nation not safe? That is the question that keeps me up every single night. Why are schools in this nation not safe? And what can we do about it? So start with your why. What and who you care about scientifically, society, wherever. So start with your why and bring that why full circle. And the why matters so much because the why of our research questions is truly like our north star. And this is why if your mentors have ever said you brought him a paper or proposal and said, "What's your research question?" Go back. come back to me when you have your research question. Why this matters so much is because we know that research questions they literally serve as our northstar. They are our focus. And so research questions matter because they give us focus and clarity. They define the scope of our inquiry and also the partnerships that we may need to establish to carry through that inquiry. They influence our methodology. They determine what we do and don't learn about our naturalbuilt social and technical environments. Over times, my north star has become bigger and brighter as I've been exposed to all these different communities in this field that's helping to carry me forth. And so I hope that you all over these remaining eight and a half days together that you will really use this ASP colloquium to define your north star and in particular to really think about the north star that's going to help guide not just what you're doing in the context of this colloquium but in the context of your graduate studies in the context of who you want to be as a researcher. Because what you study it is not just sort of something you pick off the shelf or at least I hope it's not or that your adviser picks off the shelf for you that you identify something that you want to have help guide you forward. And this is important because the north star for really time in memorial has served the north star isn't the brightest star in the sky. But what makes the North Star special and why it's been used literally for for time and memorial by people who are trying to find their way way is because the North Star appears as if it's anchored in the sky. And so that's how people have been able to find their direction when they're lost. It's been able when they don't know when they're where they're going or what path they're going to take. It's actually helped to illuminate and clarify. And then finally, the northstar has provided inspiration and motivation to move people forward. And so keep that in mind as you're moving forward through this colloquium and through your lives because having that north star, when you don't have it, you're going to know it. when you've found it, it is going to show in everything that you do. And so with that, thank you for listening to me and um thank you for having me so very much and thank you for this lecture. Thank you. So thank you. >> Does anyone know where the North Star is anchored in the sky? >> The north. So, somebody should fact check me on this. I learned this from my husband from backpacking. It is at the Aszmouth, that is um equivalent to what latitude we're at. So, here we're about what, 41? Is that right? So, that would be um where it is here. But if you're farther north or if you're farther south, but that's where it will always be. So, fact check me on this. And then um if I'm wrong, don't tell my husband [laughter] because he tells me every time we go backpacking. Um we have just a couple minutes for quick questions for Lori. Um thank you, Lori. That was absolutely fantastic. 15 minutes. >> Oh, I thought we break from 10 to 10:30. >> Do we break at 10:15? >> Oh, Mariana is correcting me, also factecking me on this. We have been 15 plus minutes, 16 and a half actually. Questions for Lori. >> Hi, thank you for your talk. Um, so I just had a question regarding like closing the gap between like awareness and action cuz I feel like trying to get the public involved is kind of difficult because I feel like sometimes people don't really think about it or care too much until it personally like affects them. Um, so like in like for example tornadoes, you know, people don't really know the difference between like warnings and watches, so they don't really act. Um, so kind of just like how do you get the public to be more involved, I guess. >> Oh, I love that question. I think closing that awareness and action is a fundamental um issue. And so, thank you. And so, a few things I would say about that is one, I do feel like in the risk communication space for too long, people thought like if we could just make people aware of their risk, then they would do all the things we want them to do. And of course that one it doesn't acknowledge people's wisdom that we know that many people they are deeply aware of the risks that they face. They just may not have the power, the resources or the capacity to take action. And so sometimes like even when the awareness has been achieved there may be that like that capacity gap that needs to be addressed and that's really an inequality gap. Um, I also think there's an overwhelm. I can't tell you how many people I have spoken to that live I mean live at extreme risk and and and you kind of think these are the people like once I give a talk at a society for environmental journalists and let me tell you if you want to make somebody run away from you at a cocktail hour. So there was this like environmental journalist and she's out there and she tells me, "Oh, I live in the East Bay." And I said, "Oh, let me tell you about this Haywired project and it's all about when the Haywire fault ruptures, what's going to happen?" And she literally she looked at me as if I was like the worst human being. And I was like, I am so sorry. She just really scammed you. And I I mean she literally she could not have scured away from me any faster. And so sometime and it was like she didn't she did not and she really looked at me and she said I I know there is that risk I cannot even think about it because I just I can't even think about it and then she really walked away and I was like oh my god and so it was such a reminder that even she's an environmental journalist that even people they've got the awareness that sometime there's this other just the true overwhelm the overwhelm of daily life the overwhelm of the risk the overwhelm of lack of other options and this is true for her higher income people too. Um and so I think there's that and so how do we how do we overcome these challenges where I think I've seen the most success is when people don't make it about the hazard. I sp I've spent every single day for the past 26 years thinking about hazards. I am regularly reminded when I'm interacting with normal non-hazard people, they do not spend every day thinking about hazards, nor do they want to. What they want to think about are their jobs, their kids, their lives. And so, how can we integrate what we're doing in a positive way, in a solutions-based way? And to give a real example of this from Fort Collins, Colorado, they tried for years. Fort Collins has incredible flood risk from the Pter River. Incredible. They've experienced incredible losses there. And they spent years, what did they do? Communicating about the risk. We're in a one in aundred-year flood plan, you know, and people just shut down. And then they started to say, what do people in Fort Collins love? Beer and bicycles. Who doesn't? Beer and bicycles. Let's do that. And they started saying, you know what we could have if we moved these structures out of the spa out of the flood plane and made it in green space, we could have some of the best bike pathways in the nation. We could have better recreation and we could have better community. Let's do that. And all of a sudden, people got on board. They were aware they were solving a flood problem. They didn't care about that. They cared about making their community one of the best places to live in the United States, which it's been labeled. And so I think that's the magic. And I will tell you, even when I was in Portland, I was with this other woman. We've done all this stuff on Shake Alert and communicating earthquake early warning. We ask everybody, everybody we met, our waiter at the restaurant, you know, do you have Shake Alert on your phone? No way. I live in a concrete building. It's going to collapse. I don't want to know because the warning couldn't help me. and you're sitting there going, "This is the awareness and the action gap." And so he doesn't want to t talk about or think about his building collapsing. What would get him to get shake alert on his phone? His friends, his neighbors, his community connection. So I think that's going to be the magic. And I think that's our next frontier is we need to do all the hard risk work and science, but we need to figure out how do we communicate the magic and the possibility, not just the fear and the loss that's real, but that's not going to motivate and inspire people. It's going to be our connections and our possibilities. So I think looking for those examples, those Fort Collins, Colorado, that's what's going to help save us and finding the champions who can do this. Well, >> thank you. That was beautiful. >> Hi. >> Hi. Um, so I first want to say thank you so much for your speech. It was incredible. Um, and I have two questions for you. So, I didn't realize it, but I am doing convergence research right now as a grad student. Um, and I'm just starting. And so, as someone who is about to enter my second semester, I've never applied for a grant. like I've never advocated for myself in that way. I have two questions for you. One, what advice can you give because I do I would love to try to be funded by you and I was funded actually by the National Hazard Center before. So, thank you. Um, and two, what kind of advice can you give to someone who is trying to do this in an environment that hasn't been done before in my university? >> Yes. Oh, beautiful. So for first, yes, want to offend you. And second, um a second um to the grand writing and how do we do this and do it well? Models, models, models. I'm all about look for models. Look for mentors, look for people who've done it well. And also read Betty Lie, a psychologist. She wrote a book called The Grant Writing Guide. She's a disaster researcher. It is an amazing book. I have read it cover to cover. It is an amazing book. The grant writing guide is going to give some of the best guidance to early career researchers imaginable. She also just wrote a new book that's coming out soon that I've also read that's on public scholarship. So Betty lie l ai. Um that's number one what I'd say look for models and read that book. And uh second for the how do you do it when you're what I like to call the lonely only. Women a lot of times and male-dominated spaces are the lonely only. Social scientists a lot of times are the lonely only in physical or earth system science or engineering spaces. But there's a power in being the lonely only. um that especially if you could find champions and advocates around you that can help to support and uplift what you're doing. And so I think I think again coming to people and saying like asking that question, how did you do it? You were the only social scientist in the room. How did you get that off the ground and do that? like asking those kinds of questions of other people and they may or may not be in your direct area of study but I think that is a huge place a lot of times we're like ask for mentorship about how to do methods do that but also ask for mentorship about how to be a scholar and how to do what you want to do and I'd love to talk to you more throughout that throughout the day about that >> and take advantage of this network of people who are like you who want to support you too support doesn't just have to come in space but also in the virtual space too I think Lori would that. Yes. >> Yeah. >> Oh, got it. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And how do you how do you become that person? And so, yeah, I mean that again page of books have been spilled about that and how to do it well. And I think you know always like that trust building taking time listening first here in both that is number I think the number one thing we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason listening first is so fundamental all Danielle Mcnut is the she's amazing she's a mitigation expert here in Boulder Colorado and she talked about how her work was transformed what was she doing going out in the wildland interface trying to get people like us to mitigate and she'd come in with all of knowledge, wisdom, information, trying to give people their risk profile. And what she did, she flipped that and she came in and she said, "What made you reach out to Boulder County about our mitigation program?" Imagine what she heard. Fear my neighbor did it. All the just in that simple flipping the script of moving from being expert to being listener that she said then it starts with people's stories. why they called you in, why they were motivated, and then she could connect. Oh, your neighbor did it. Let me tell you about the resources they drew on. So, I think that listening first is perhaps the most fundamental thing you can do. >> And the magical phrase, tell me more. >> Tell me more. >> I know we've got some on this. [laughter] >> Okay. >> Hi. Um my question was actually going to be about trust building, but maybe I can expand that a little bit for so any lessons you've learned both from working with like community members and more the particip participatory research side, but also maybe amongst like the kind of slew of experts that you've worked with and ensuring that there's trust and kind of respect across all the different disciplines and anything you might have experienced there. Yeah, I thank you so much. And I think le leading with like figuring out what are your core your true core characteristics of who you want to be as a human being. Like starting starting and ending everything with gratitude is like one of the core that is like a core um element of who I want to be as a human being. And so figuring out what are your core elements of who you want to be in context and really thinking deeply about that I think is very very important like know thyself so that you can know others. So spending some real time thinking about what are your what are the core drivers of who you want to be in life and also want to be as a scholar because it's first and for you are a human being and so that's one thing I'd say. I would also say again like observing I've observed over the years like both when trust has been broken in very serious and very harmful ways and really trying to understand almost an autopsy of of broken trust and understanding like what went where was it that that went wrong in the process and so I've spent a lot of time like reading about that reading case studies thinking deeply about it and also reading a lot and observing a lot and doing a to try to build that trust and so we have trainings through converge that are on things like reciprocity and so again centering that as a core principle of your work so your work isn't extractive and if you center reciprocity and you start from the beginning about not what am I getting out of this what are we getting out of that how that can transform so again I think having those core guiding principles in your life as a human being and then as a scholar can make such a difference paying attention to when things break and don't go well and trying to repair if you were part of that or learn even if you weren't and trying to adhere to those guiding principles and to spend the time like there's no shortcut as you know I mean you asked the question so beautifully there's no shortcut for building trust and building relationship and um and so I think those are some of the fundamental things that come to mind but a lot of specific examples that we've shared in our writing too that I'd love to share yeah thank you Okay. >> So, for questions, just so you know, >> your hand may be raised, but we're going to make sure that we hear from a lot of people today. So, >> I know you raised your hand, but we're gonna Okay. >> And I'll be fast so I can hear the questions. Thank you. >> Well, then we will have more time this afternoon, too. And you'll be able to chat with Lori at the break >> and I'm going to be here all day long exactly for this reason. So, >> thank you, >> Marina. >> Thank you for your talk. And again to build on the past few questions, um I was thinking particularly with the tornado example and if you're like doing rapid response type of research, like say there's a tornado outbreak and you're going to Alabama and I've never been there before, like how do you deploy to an area that was impacted by say a tornado in this case and build that trust and engrave yourself in a community quickly but also ethically? >> Yes, thank you for asking that. And that's actually one of the things that I am very proud of with Converge that I feel like we have made real progress through centering the experiences, knowledge and expertise of local researchers and again this was where I saw um some hard times like after Christ Church I witnessed as the locally affected researchers they were amazing but they were completely overwhelmed like there were hundreds of reconnaissance researchers who came in after the Christ Church earthquakes and I watched as these people who lived their communities were [clears throat] destroyed and up in it and they were trying to lead this and so I spent a lot of time in building converge and thinking about exactly that question and so one of the things that we do after big disasters that we know are going to generate a large multi-disiplinary research response is we hold these virtual forums and and where we I literally stand up a zoom call and we invite people to talk about health and safety concerns the research priorities and so forth and um one of the things I always do is I have locally affected people and or researchers who are on the call, they go first. They always get the priority after the Marshall fires happened here five years ago in Colorado. One a locally affected researcher Katie Dickinson, she was on the call. She raised her hand and she said, "We want to lead a unified survey effort because we don't want to overburden my community, our affected communities. We want to also work together to do stronger science." over 40 researchers from across disciplines join. And think of this, rather than having 40 surveys fielded from, you know, goodness knows where across the United States of people who don't even know the context, we had one Marshall unified survey that engaged all those researchers. They've fielded four waves of it. And so it can work. It can work with that kind of local leadership, but just with that little bit of support um to do this. And so I think the lesson of that is I would not deploy to Alabama by myself if I were not from there. I would try to join one of these teams or to reach out to a facility like ours that's thinking about it and saying I want to do this. And in fact in our grant applications through the hazard center we require that people have an ethics statement and also a partnership statement so people aren't going in blind because we don't want the researcher to get harmed. We also don't want the people to get harmed. I thank you for that question and allowing me to expand. This can work so well when it's done with those principles. Yeah. >> All right. Oh, like everyone's face just like turned over. >> So, we are like 45 seconds away from our break and Lori, we still do not know what your favorite earth system phenomenon is. >> Would you like to share what that is? I can tell you what my favorite social system phenomenon is this right now. Um, so I I would say rainfall like just anything involving water and that's a big since being in Colorado which is I know this is the epicenter of flash floods but it's also um we live we live in the wildland urban interface and so anything involving rainfall is a gift from above literally and figuratively. So >> let us all thank Lori again very emphatically. Thank you so much Lori for your brilliance, for your compassion, for your leadership, for your time, for being for accepting this invitation to stand up and speak. [music]