Kevin Mickey, Director of Geospatial Technology Education at The Polis Center, has been named Chair of the National Institute of Building Sciences Multihazard Mitigation Council (MMC).
MMC is one of several integral security and disaster preparedness programs of the National Institute of Building Sciences. It aims to reduce the total losses associated with natural and other hazards by fostering and promoting consistent and improved multihazard risk mitigation strategies, guidelines, practices, and related efforts. The Council is governed by an elected board of directors comprised of nationally-recognized leaders from both private and nonprofit sectors.
Kevin, who also serves on the Board of Directors of the Urban & Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), said, “The MMC brings together a wide range of researchers and practitioners who collaborate to identify best practices that can reduce the considerable social and economic impacts of hazards. Its work to make our nation more resilient to these hazards perfectly aligns with the mission of the university.”
In addition to his role at The Polis Center, Kevin teaches graduate courses in the application of GIS for emergency management and public safety for the IU School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at IUPUI. He is a recognized expert in FEMA’s Hazus-MH technology and supporting methodology and has served as a lead instructor for the FEMA Emergency Management Institute since 2003. He is working on a book, “Geospatial Technologies and Flood Risk Modeling,” which discusses past, current, and potential future applications of GIS and other geospatial tools for the identification and mitigation of flood risk.
Dr. David Bodenhamer, Executive Director of The Polis Center, said “Kevin is a key member of the Polis Center team and is very knowledgeable about emergency management, disaster mitigation, and geospatial tools and applications. He has more than 25 years of experience in working with multiple federal agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Labor, the Department of Housing & Urban Development, Geological Survey, the National Library of Medicine, and many other state and local government, private sector, academic and nonprofit entities. We are pleased that he now will be making even more significant contributions to an important national priority.”