Chittayong (Jao) Surakitbanharn

Chittayong (Jao) Surakitbanharn is the executive director of the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative (SURI). Surakitbanharn's current research focuses on harnessing novel data streams to better communicate disaster and emergency information for improved decision making and resilient outcomes. He has been previously funded by the U.S., Australian, Chinese, and Japanese governments to research the role of aviation for the resilience of rural communities. As part of this work, he spent four years working abroad with researchers and local stakeholders to improve safety and resilience in flood-prone areas in Australia, volcanic areas in Indonesia, and better understand the role of subsidizing critical infrastructure following the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami in Japan.