Tina Comes
Director Resilience Lab & Domain lead Disasters
Full Professor
I am the director of the TPM Resilience Lab as I firmly believe that our societies need to become more resilient. I have a background in Decision Theory and coordination. Since my PhD, I have been determined to better understand decision-making of individuals and groups in the context of risk, crises and disasters. Decision-makers need to rapidly react to a growing number of crises to ensure the resilience and sustainable growth of our society. Whether it is Covid19, winter storms causing severe power outages or political instability and riots: disruptions have become more common. Combined with the proliferation and volatility of data and the digitalisation and interconnectedness of our societies, this implies that decision-makers need to make increasingly uncertain and far-reaching decisions at an accelerating pace. In my research, I aim to develop methods and approaches that support decision-makers in these situations by connecting the analytical and behavioural branches of decision theory to promote societal resilience. This ranges from questions about how to organize information sharing from the bottom up to ensure that decision-makers get the information they need by the time they need it to the just and fair organization of humanitarian supply chains. I am committed to working with decision-makers from practice, and much of my research has been funded by national and international funding. In my role as the director of the TPM Resilience Lab, I would like to bring together the different perspectives of systems, governance and values to shape a shared understanding of resilience that cuts across the different infrastructures or research streams. I think we can truly advance the field by this interdisciplinary work.