Ward Lyles
While working to complete his doctoral studies at the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ward has been a PERISHIP Fellow and Royster Fellow. His dissertation, titled “Stakeholder Network Influences on Hazard Mitigation Planning Outputs,” seeks to add to the current understanding of factors driving the development, adoption, and implementation of hazard mitigation plans that increase community resilience through planning outputs. It examines the influence of networks of stakeholders involved in planning processes on the incorporation of sustainable land use and development management policies and program into mitigation plans.
Lyles’ research interests include land use and environment planning, particularly in the context of natural hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation, as well as planning networks and plan quality evaluation. Two recent peer reviewed publications Ward has co-authored have examined the quality of Disaster Mitigation Act-compliant state hazard mitigation plans and explored applications of Social Network Analysis concepts and methods for understanding planning and policy networks.
Lyles received his undergraduate degree in Geology from Middlebury College and his master’s degree in land resources from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He worked on transportation reform issues for the land use planning and environmental organization 1000 Friends of Wisconsin for five years before returning to his home state of North Carolina to pursue his doctoral studies.
Workshop Abstracts
Who's at the Table? Examining Factors Driving Incorporation of Land Use Approaches in Hazard Mitigation Plans
With Philip Berke and Gavin Smith
Social Network Analysis of Hazard Mitigation Planning
With Philip Berke and Gavin Smith
