Lori Peek

Lori Peek is Director of the Natural Hazards Center and Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. She studies marginalized populations in disaster and is author of Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11, co-editor of Displaced: Life in the Katrina Diaspora, and co-author of Children of Katrina. Peek helped develop school safety guidance for the nation, which resulted in the publication of FEMA P-1000, Safer, Stronger, Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety. Peek has conducted field investigations in the aftermath of several major disasters. She is the principal investigator for the National Science Foundation-funded CONVERGE facility, which is dedicated to improving research coordination and advancing the ethical conduct and scientific rigor of disaster research. She also leads the Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) and Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Extreme Events Research (ISEEER) networks. She is past President of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Disasters and past Chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Environmental Sociology. She is a Board Member for the Bill Anderson Fund, which is an initiative dedicated to increasing the number of persons of color in hazards mitigation and disaster research. Peek received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2005.