BEN WISNER ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM OBERLIN COLLEGE OBERLIN, OHIO, 44074 Ben Wisner began work in rural Tanzania in 1966, writing his PhD dissertation on how households cope with drought in eastern Kenya (1978). During the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s he worked in many parts of Africa on questions concerning wood fuel and rural energy, water and sanitation, drought, flood, community health and food security. During this period he taught at University of Dar es Salaam , Eduardo Mondlane ( Maputo , Mozambique ), Sheffield , ETH-Zurich, Rutgers , UCLA, Wisconsin-Madison, The New School for Social Research. He took up a position as Henry R. Luce Professor of Food, Resources and International Policy at Hampshire College ( Amherst , MA ) in 1987, leaving to become Director of International Studies and Professor of Geography at California State University at Long Beach in 1996. Wisner retired from full time teaching in 2000, and engages in research and consulting from bases in the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College, Ohio, as well as the Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics, and the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, University College London. He is was vice chair of the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative from 1997-2002, and is vice chair of the Commission on Risk and Hazards of the International Geographical Union (IGU) as well as a full member of the IGU’s Task Force on Megacities. Recently he completed a review of urban disaster for UNESCO (http://www.unesco.org/most/isscreport.htm ). He also served as a senior technical editor for UNDP’s 2004 report, Reducing Disaster Risk: A Challenge for Development (http://www.undp.org/bcpr/disred/rdr.htm ) and as co-author/editor of Environment and Health in Emergencies and Disasters, a volume of guidelines published by the World Health Organization (2003) (http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/emergencies/en/ ). Wisner is currently advising the United Nations (ISRD) on the thematic portion of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction to be held in January 2004. He was co-author of At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters (London: Routledge, 1994) and lead author of its 2 nd edition (2004); author of Power and Need in Africa: Basic Human Needs and Development Policy (London: Earthscan, 1988), and numerous refereed papers, book chapters, and reports. He is also co-founder, with Dr. Maureen Fordham, of the web site devoted to social aspects of disaster management, RADIX: www.online.northumbria.ac.uk/geography_research/radix . Wisner’s current research includes patterns and opportunities for coping with drought in Kenya ’s arid and semi-arid lands (a follow up to his work there 1971-76), adaptation to climate change in Tanzania , and floods in Mozambique.