Professor Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, PhD: Professor Reinhardt studies how citizens and policy makers make decisions under uncertainty, and how those decisions affect economic, social,
and political development and subsequent policy outcomes. She focuses specifically on resilience, disasters, and international development, asking how public financing can be judiciously allocated to help avert, alleviate, mitigate, and manage disasters and serve vulnerable populations. As such, she has researched and conducted projects in areas such as climate change adaptation policy, marine governance, inclusion and widening participation in higher education, public health policy and governance, risk reduction, home safety, and transportation policy.
Professor Reinhardt has worked extensively with Local Authorities in the UK to help them evaluate the impact of their public programmes, specifically with respect to outcomes that are difficult to measure, such as changes in happiness, wellbeing, and connectedness. Her work has won awards for achieving impact in the public, voluntary, and private sectors. She is also known for directing and managing large, diverse, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research teams. Her recent and previous research can be found in journals such as Local Government Studies, Perspectives in Public Health, Political Research Quarterly, and the Journal of Risk Research.
