BETTY MORROW, Ph.D.

Dr. Betty Hearn Morrow is a consulting sociologist specializing in qualitative studies of disaster response. She is Professor Emeritus at Florida International University and former director of the Laboratory for Social and Behavioral Research at the International Hurricane Research Center. Her research on the effect of human and social factors on the ability of individuals, families and communities to respond to hazards is reflected in Human Links to Coastal Disasters published by the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. She is co-editor of The Gendered Terrain of Disaster and a newly edited book on Women and Disasters.

Over the last decade she has been part of a team of social scientists analyzing the long-term effects of Hurricane Andrew on South Florida, funded by the National Science Foundation and resulting in the co-authored book, Hurricane Andrew: Ethnicity, Gender and the Sociology of Disaster. More recently, she studied the early response to Hurricane Charley in southwestern Florida, explored the standardization of serious weather messages for the Federal Coordinator of Meteorology, and assessed the impact of Hurricane Ivan on critical government and business organizations in Pensacola, Florida.