Dr Eefje Hendriks
IAS Residential Fellow
University of Twente
Dr Hendriks is Assistant Professor of Disaster Resilience and Humanitarian Assistance. They have a track record in the field of disaster risk reduction, disaster resilience, humanitarian assistance, self-recovery, and decision-making. They have studied and worked in humanitarian assistance/aid, post-disaster reconstruction, shelter and settlement, migration in Europe, and adaptation to climate change of the built environment for more than 10 years, especially in hazard prone areas in low-income countries. They lecture on humanitarian engineering, disaster risk reduction, disaster resilience, methodology, and organize in-situ/fieldwork research for students.
At the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), they currently lead a project called Enabling vulnerable communities to build back safer, financed by a personal VENI grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This project explores decision making during post-disaster reconstruction to find pathways for effective assistance to build back safer housing. They are interested in decision making in complex multi-hazard situations, linked to challenges of climate change. THey aim to develop assistance strategies for both governmental and humanitarian actors. They are also interested in digital tools to support safer self-recovery after disasters.
Dr Hendriks is also a member of the Centre for Disaster Resilience at the University of Twente, and support research proposals and communication. They also serve as a daily board member of Technology for Global Development, at the Eindhoven University of Technology, bridging the gap between science and practice. They actively engage with stakeholders from the Global Shelter Cluster, allowing them to stay close to the experiences and processes taking place in my fields of study. They also serve as an author, guest-editor, and reviewer for leading journals, including Disaster Prevention and Management and Disaster Risk Reduction. They are part of a movement calling for more inclusive disaster studies. They engage in research, monitoring and evaluation and advisory consultancy work. Currently, they support different municipalities and regions in adaptation to climate change for the EU Adaptation Strategy. They regularly present at different conferences, and engage in organizing conferences or conference panels, in collaboration with academic peers.