James Goltz

James Goltz is a Sociologist and former Branch Chief of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Volcanic Hazards Program for California’s Office of Emergency Services. His areas of expertise include human behavior in disaster, earthquake and tsunami warning, tsunami evacuation strategies and the relationship between emergency managers and scientists in responding to natural disasters. For two one-year terms between 2015 and 2018, he was a visiting research professor at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) of Kyoto University in Japan. In April 2019, he returned to Japan for an 8-month stay at Kyoto University and DPRI with a fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He served for 6 years as a member of the Advisory Committee for the US National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program and has been a program reviewer for the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. He received BA and MA degrees from the Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from UCLA.