Disaster debris management is critical to the success of disaster recovery systems. While there are multiple disaster mitigation strategies and post-disaster debris management plans, it is hard to implement because of: (i) the uniqueness of disaster incidents and randomness of its impacts; (ii) complexity of disaster debris removal operations,…

Hurricanes pose significant risk to life and property to communities adjacent to the tropical cyclone basins of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. In the United States, there are significant public misconceptions about hurricane hazards such as wind and storm surge, despite timely and accurate forecasts and warnings. However, appropriate…

The purpose of this study aimed to explore the experiences of Haitian immigrant college students who sought higher education attainment in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in the United States. This study focused on understanding participants' migration experience, immigration policy, and their decision to pursue a college degree in the United…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to analyze the perspectives of parents and teachers regarding the barriers and successors of educating African American students through a global pandemic, or unexpected school closure. The study researched successful practices and impediments African American students experience and suggested future…

Science and society are inseparably linked, shaping each other in ways that define our world, emphasizing the need to teach science for empowering students capable of taking meaningful action toward building a sustainable and just society. Developing sustainability competencies in students is an important step toward this goal, with controversial…

This study investigated principal leadership as a moderator of teacher turnover following natural hazard exposure. Like other disruptions to schooling, such as pandemics, natural hazard exposure is associated with a variety of negative outcomes in schools, including increased stress for teachers and lowered achievement for students. Using…

This thesis aims to implement a prototype system to screen flooding photos from social media. These photos, associated with their geographic locations, can provide free, timely, and reliable visual information about flood events to the decision makers. This system is designed for the application to the real social media images, including several…

Natural disasters can strike anywhere at any time. As new disasters inevitably loom in the future, it is important to understand how the consequences of natural disaster loss lead to identity development. This work adds to the lack of research linking identity development and natural disaster by looking at an individual's process of identity…

"Before the Aftermath: A Pedagogy for Disaster Responsiveness" examines how teachers of writing at the college level can respond to social, natural, or political disasters that interrupt their classes. As disaster becomes an increasingly prominent feature of contemporary life, teachers are encountering it in their work, and being forced…

This is a narrative inquiry study that presented types of women's activism during and after the conflict in Aceh, Indonesia (1976-2005). The study sought to explain how divergent women's activism becomes possible against the backdrop of this conflict and how the establishment of peace alters the patterns of their activism. Women's activism here…

Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to determine to what extent educational leaders in Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; and the Island of Puerto Rico implemented the school emergency operations plan and recovery planning guides from the USDE before and during 2017 Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.…

Public schools in New Orleans are changing our normative understandings of what it means to be a teacher, student, or administrator in our global society. The New Orleans public schools underwent a process of deregulation initiated by the State of Louisiana and the local school board in 2005. The process, truly the first of its kind, was expedited…

The United States Military has become increasingly dependent upon technology to meet its mission objectives with a consequence being greater dependence on civilian defense contractors to provide specialized services in support of high-tech mission requirements. Modern military defense contractors have also become dependent upon reliable and secure…

This dissertation consists of three independent chapters in applied microeconomics. In the first chapter, I study the causal effect impact of early life circumstances on adult psychological well-being using the property reform in China as a positive and policy driven change in economic resources in early life. Exploiting the staggered adoption of…

Over the past twenty years, shootings and other violent incidents, acts of terrorism such as the attacks of September 11, 2001, and natural disaster events such as hurricanes or floods have occurred with increasing frequency. Situations like these pose significant challenges for school administrators when a normally-peaceful educational…