Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has appointed a geophysicist specialising in earthquake risks.
Dr Mary-Lou Zoback has previously worked as regional co-ordinator for the United States Geological Survey's (USGS) Northern California Earthquake Hazard Program.
At RMS, Zoback will take responsibility for earthquake hazard and risk networks. She will also liaise with other experts in the development of earthquake risk models.
Zoback commented: “The toll of earthquakes and other natural disasters, both in terms of lives and property loss, continues to rise and overwhelm the ability of governments to respond and restore. I am very excited to join RMS and look forward to developing new tools to encourage and expand the role of the private sector in promoting education and sound mitigation action to reduce earthquake risk.
Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer at RMS, said: “The role of catastrophe modeling is being redefined and expanded not only in the US and other developed countries, but throughout South and Central America and south Asia where there is some of the greatest concentration of earthquake risk. The modelling agenda is increasingly moving to explore what can be done to implement cost effective reductions in casualties and damage and what happens in the aftermath of a major earthquake when only a minority of the damage is restituted by insurance recoveries.”
