Natural Disaster Hotspots
A Global Risk Analysis

ARTHUR LERNER-LAM, Ph.D.

Dr. Lerner-Lam is a Doherty Senior Research Scientist and Associate Director for Seismology, Geology, and Tectonophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, both at Columbia University. A seismologist, he has studied and published on the interactions between crust and mantle, the thickness of continental plates, the structure of mountain belts and crustal rifts, and active seismicity. He has done fieldwork in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Southwest Pacific, and throughout the United States, and in recent years has lectured extensively on natural hazards and society.

He is the organizer and Interim Director of the new Columbia Center for Hazards and Risk Research, part of Columbia’s Earth Institute. The Hazards & Risk Center brings together experts from the physical sciences, the social sciences, and the policy communities to develop approaches for reducing the vulnerability of society to natural and man-made disasters. Dr. Lerner-Lam received his undergraduate degree in geological sciences from Princeton University. His doctorate in geophysical sciences was received from the University of California, San Diego at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He has held Post-doctoral positions at Scripps and MIT, and has been at Columbia since 1985.