Melanie Gall

Assistant Professor and Co-Director for CEMHS, School of Public Affairs (SPA)

Co-Director, Center for Emergency Management Homeland Security (CEMHS)

Affiliate Faculty, SGSUP - Affiliate Faculty

Senior Global Futures Scientist, Global Futures Scientists and Scholars

Downtown Campus UCENT 422H 411 N Central Ave Phoenix, AZ 85004
Mail code: 3720

Campus: Dtphx
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Long Bio

Melanie Gall is an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs where she co-directs the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security and manages the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS). She is a trained hazards geographer studying the interaction between natural hazards and society. Her expertise lies in risk metrics (e.g., disaster losses, indices, risk assessments), hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation planning as well as environmental modeling. The applied nature of hazards research allows her to work closely with emergency management agencies from local to federal levels. She has conducted post-disaster field work in Mozambique, Haiti, and in the United States. Her publications appeared in journals such as Nature Climate Change, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and Natural Hazards Review. She is a certified floodplain manager and holds a doctorate from the University of South Carolina (Geography), a master's degree from the University of Salzburg in Austria (Geography/GIS), and a bachelor's degree from the University of Heidelberg in Germany (Geography).

Education

Ph.D. Geography, University of South Carolina, 2007
M.S. Geography and Geoinformatics, University of Salzburg (Austria), 2002
B.S. Geography (Biology and Political Sciences), University of Heidelberg (Germany), 1999
Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM), 2012

Curriculum Vitae (374.29 KB)

Video

Research Website URL

https://cemhs.asu.edu

Google Scholar URL

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JYLzOQgAAAAJ&hl=en

Experts.asu.edu URL

https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/persons/melanie-gall

ORCID Profile ID

0000-0002-9344-6727

Research Interests

Societal impacts of natural hazards and extreme events

Loss and damage

Vulnerability and resilience indices

Vulnerable populations

Hazard mitigation planning

Climate Change Adaptation Planning

Environmental justice

Floods

Research Group

Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security

Publications

Select Publications

CEMHS. 2022. The Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS) Version 21 [online database]. Available at sheldus.org.

Gall, M., T. Sheldon, and L. Collins. 2022. The economic impact of disaster-related school closures. Risks, Hazards, and Crisis in Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1002/rhc3.12242

Gall, M. and Carol J. Friedland. 2020. If Mitigation Saves $6 Per Every $1 Spent, Then Why Are We Not Investing More? A Louisiana Perspective on a National Issue. Natural Hazards Review 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000342

de Sherbinin, A., A. Bukvic, G. Rohat, M. Gall, B. McCusker, B. Preston, A. Apotsos, C. Fish, S. Kienberger, P. Muhonda, O. Wilhelmi, D. Macharia, W. Shubert, R. Sliuzas, B. Tomaszewski, and S. Zhang. 2019. Climate change vulnerability mapping: a systematic review and recommendations for the future. WIREs Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.600

Cutter, S. L., & Gall, M. (2015). Sendai targets at risk. Nature Climate Change, 5(8), 707-709.

Gall, M., Nguyen, K. H., & Cutter, S. L. (2015). Integrated research on disaster risk: Is it really integrated?. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 12, 255-267.

Gall, M., Borden, K. A., Emrich, C. T., & Cutter, S. L. (2011). The unsustainable trend of natural hazard losses in the United States. Sustainability, 3(11), 2157-2181.

Gall, M., Borden, K. A., & Cutter, S. L. (2009). When do losses count? Six fallacies of natural hazards loss data. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 90(6), 799-810.

Gall, M. (2007). Indices of social vulnerability to natural hazards: a comparative evaluation (Doctoral dissertation, University of South Carolina).

Courses

2023 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis

2022 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning

2022 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis

2021 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning

2021 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis

2020 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning

2020 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis

2019 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 510	Hazards Governance
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning
CPP 511	Hazard Mitigation Planning

2019 Summer

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis

2019 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis
CPP 570	GIS for Hazards Analysis

2018 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
CPP 591	Seminar
CPP 591	Seminar

Service

2017-2018 Member, Committee for Measuring Community Resilience, National Academies of Sciences

2016 Central Midlands Council of Government. An all natural hazard risk assessment and hazard mitigation plan for the Central Midlands Region of South Carolina. For the use by municipalities and jurisdictions of Fairfield, Lexington, Newberry, and Richland Counties. http://centralmidlands.org/publications/free-documents.html

2013 Gall, M., C. Friedland, T. A. Joyner, R. Orgera, C. Fu, and S. Ogea. Disaster Resistant University Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University System, 970 p. Available at http://dsm.lsu.edu/pr_hazmit.htm.

Pro Bono

2017 Development and maintenance of web-based map for Florida VOADs (Hurricane Irma),

2016 SESYNC Pursuit Project: Meta-Analysis of Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping Studies: Improving Methods and Map Outputs; PI: Alex de Sherbinin

2010 Geospatial analysis support for the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Animal Relief Coalition in Haiti

2008 GIS support during Hurricane Gustav for East Baton Rouge Parish EOC, September 1-4.

2007 Beta-tester for HAZUS-MH MR3

Executive Education Courses

CPM 3.1 Risk Management

Expertise Areas

Crisis Management

Emergency Management

Geographic Information Science

Sustainability Transformation

Sustainable Disaster Recovery

Terrorism

Vulnerable Populations