Research Associates

Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience

	Dr Ellen Robson Research Associate	Ellen is a PDRA in Geotechnical Engineering at the IHRR. Her research focuses on developing stakeholder-focused guidance and methodologies in slope stabilisation for lower income countries. Ellen has just submitted her PhD thesis in Geotechnical Engineering at Newcastle University, which was sponsored by NERC IAPETUS. Her PhD aimed to further understand some of the causes for inadequate road slope stabilisation in lower income country settings and develop stakeholder-focused methodologies based on the findings to aid the planning and design of road slope stabilisation. During her PhD she carried out field work in Nepal and Laos, as well as conducting multiple numerical and lab-based slope stability experiments. Prior to her PhD, Ellen received an MSci in Geology from the University of Birmingham.
	Dr Hanna Ruszczyk Research Associate	Hanna’s research is concerned with urban risk and resilience governance strategies and frameworks in cities of the global South. She investigates which portfolio of risks different scales of government are concerned with and which they govern for. Hanna explores how residents manage their interpretation of risk and how residents interact with local authorities which is also a key area of her research. Understanding how the international aid community, different scales of government, and urban residents interact to make regional cities resilient and liveable is an additional element of her research.
	Dr Rebekah Harries Research Associate	Rebekah is an interdisciplinary geomorphologist interested in climate as a driver of sediment mobilisation through mountain ranges and downstream into flood prone areas. Since completing her PhD with the University of Edinburgh, she has worked as a Postdoc Fellow at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Chilean National Research Centre for Integrated Natural Disaster Management (CIGIDEN). She combines field data with numerical models to better understand the complex links between rainfall, erosion and sediment transport. Increasingly, she is investing more time in science communication through art and always looking for new collaborations.
	Vacant Research Associate