Andrew Coburn (catastrophe modeller)
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 | This biographical article is written like a résumé. (December 2007) |
Andrew William Coburn (born 1956 in Chester, England) is a well-known expert of catastrophe modeling. He is Vice President of catastrophe research and Director of terrorism research at Risk Management Solutions.
Professional life
After training in architecture at Christ's College at the University of Cambridge, Andrew Coburn completed a PhD thesis in July 1987 on Seismic vulnerability and risk reduction strategies for housing in Eastern Turkey. He worked extensively with Robin Spence, currently President of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering, on analysing earthquake risks and the effects of seismic activity on the built environment.
Since the 1980s, Coburn has studied many natural and man-made catastrophe events, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, terrorist attacks, and disease pandemics.
He has taken part in 15 earthquake field damage surveys, including:
- Irpinia in Italy, 1980
- the Spitak in Armenia, 1988
- Mexico City, 1985
- Erzurum-Kars in Turkey, 1983
- San‘ā’(Template:Lang-ar) in Yemen, 1982
- Luzon, Philippines, 1990
- Gujarat in India, 2001
- Kobe in Japan, 1995.
He attended New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 2005.
His research work has included investigations into human casualties in natural catastrophes, disease pandemics and terrorist attacks. He has held visiting research fellowships at Hokkaido University in Japan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Washington DC, U.S. and the University of Naples, Italy.
In 1987 Coburn was one of the founders of Cambridge Architectural Research, an independent architectural consultancy in Cambridge, England, providing consulting advice to the construction and development industries. A subsidiary, CARtograph Ltd., was established to model risk and develop building and engineering strategies to protect buildings from seismic activity. CARtograph attracted investment funding and in 1997 was merged with RMS. In 2002, Coburn moved to California - where he stayed until 2005 - to develop the risk analysis division of RMS.
Coburn is a leading expert on terrorism and has worked closely with the RAND Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy, and the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews, Scotland. He has pioneered leading risk models for natural and man-made catastrophes in the following categories: terrorism, pandemic influenza, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, tsunami, hurricane, and wildfire.
Most recently, he has developed a controversial risk insurance model for pandemic influenza which demonstrates that the loss of life and financial loss of a major pandemic have been underestimated by many governments and corporate bodies.
Personal life
Andrew Coburn has one brother, Nick. He attended King's School, Chester and sang in Chester Cathedral Choir. He married Helen Mulligan in 1987; they have a son and a daughter. They live near Cambridge, England.
Publications
- Earthquake Protection with Robin Spence, ISBN 0470849231
- Technical principles of building for safety with Richard Hughes, Antonios Pomonis and Robin Spence, ISBN 1853391824
- Gypsum Plaster: Its manufacture and use with Eric Dudley and Robin Spence, ISBN 1853390380
He was the consultant for How to Survive Bird Flu, ISBN 978-0-7875-2180-9
He has also acted as consultant on children's books about natural disasters:
- Earthquakes and Volcanoes, ISBN 1592233791
- Earthquake!, ISBN 0749669217
- Hurricane!, ISBN 0749669241