RICHARD SYLVES, Ph.D.

Richard Sylves is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Senior Policy Fellow of the Center on Energy and Environmental Policy at University of Delaware. He has researched presidential disaster declarations for more than fifteen years and he has co-edited (with W. Waugh) two books on disaster management in the U.S and one on a U.S. Political History of Nuclear Energy. He is completing a book on presidential disaster declarations with State University of New York Press.

From 1995-1999, Sylves completed two research grant projects for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency's Higher Education Project. One was on the "Political and Policy Basis of U.S. Emergency Management," and "The Economic Dimensions of Disaster." He regularly works with Prof. William L. Waugh and others on studies of disaster management in the U.S.; he has served on the National Academy of Science (NAS) panel, "Estimating the Costs of Natural Disasters;" and, he is completing a three year term as an appointed member of the NAS Disasters Roundtable.