Sarah K. Nathe coordinates the Disaster Resistant University Project at the University of California, Berkeley, which she joined in 1999 after ten years of experience as a senior planner at the Coastal Region Earthquake Program of the California Office of Emergency Services. The project is part of the larger SAFER Program, UCB’s multifaceted effort to reduce its earthquake vulnerability. She is particularly involved in activities to increase nonstructural hazard mitigation, to develop the complex business resumption plan, and to improve risk communication with all segments of the campus community. Nathe is a member of EERI’s Publications Policy Committee and the Social Science Committee of the Learning from Earthquakes Program. Additionally, as associate editor of the Newsletter, she edits the special earthquake report inserts produced by the reconnaissance teams that investigate significant earthquakes around the world.

While at California OES, she worked with EERI on a number of collaborative projects including development of the special publication, Incentives and Impediments to Improving the Seismic Performance of Buildings. As a member of the program committee for EERI’s Golden Anniversary Annual Meeting in 1998, she was induced to script and direct a musical show, “Your Structural Hit Parade: A Musical and Dramatic Review of the Last 50 Years.” In that extravaganza, a number of EERI notables sang, danced, played, and declaimed their way into a fairly localized fame. She followed that hit in 2001 with the Monterey production of “Acceptable Risk: The Parallel Program,” which featured some of the usual suspects as well as exciting new faces in unforgettable displays of musical exuberance.

Nathe’s career in hazards education began at the University of Colorado many years ago. When the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center (NHRAIC) was founded at CU, she was appointed as one of the editors of the Natural Hazards Observer, and edited many of the Center’s other publications designed to improve communications among hazards researchers and practitioners. After being a hazards generalist for 12 years, she moved to California in the late 80s to specialize in earthquake hazard mitigation for the Bay Area Regional Earthquake Preparedness Project. Her responsibilities for BAREPP included writing and editing the Newsletter, and creating numerous public education materials and planning guidelines. Nathe was involved in frequent cooperative risk communication projects with FEMA, the USGS, the California Geological Survey, the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Red Cross, and many academic and private sector research organizations. With representatives of 15 state and national organizations, she coordinated the development of the California Post-Earthquake Information Clearinghouse Plan, which provides for California professionals to work together for efficient and effective reconnaissance. Recently, she was lead author on Public Education for Earthquake Hazards, a survey of the science and art of communicating risk to the general public, published by the NHRAIC in the Natural Hazards Informer series.