Jennifer Tobin

Jennifer Tobin is the assistant director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she provides strategic leadership to advance the Center’s mission of building connections, supporting hazards and disaster research, advancing knowledge, and training and mentoring the next generation of hazards and disaster professionals. In this role, she oversees daily Center operations, supervises and supports core staff and student teams, manages organizational processes, and contributes to the long-term visioning and agenda setting for the Center.

Tobin leads many key Center activities, including the planning and execution of the annual Natural Hazards Workshop, Researchers Meeting, and Practitioners Meetins. Together, these events that convene hundreds of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers each year. She also co-administers the Center’s federally-funded Research Award Programs and supports the development, implementation, and dissemination of multidisciplinary research projects.

Tobin’s research and project leadership have covered a variety of pressing topics, including children and youth, educational continuity, school safety, disaster risk reduction, community resilience, and interdisciplinary and convergence research. She has served as senior personnel on multiple large-scale, federally funded efforts. Most notably, this includes the National Science Foundation-funded CONVERGE Facility and the Natural Hazards Center’s Clearinghouse activities. She has contributed to numerous collaborative projects funded by NSF, NOAA, FEMA, CDC, NIST, USGS, NIH, and other federal agencies. Her work has appeared in journals such as Risk Analysis, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Frontiers in Built Environment, Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, and the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice.

Tobin received the 2025 Women Who Make a Difference Award from the University of Colorado Boulder. She is also the recipient of the Beth B. Hess Memorial Dissertation Scholarship and other honors recognizing her research, teaching, leadership, and service. She is frequently invited to present nationally and internationally on interdisciplinary disaster research and the social dimensions of disasters. She has organized national workshops, facilitated practitioner–researcher collaborations, served in a variety of leadership roles, and engaged in many service activities.

Tobin earned her PhD in Sociology from Colorado State University. Her dissertation examined educational continuity following the 2013 Colorado Front Range Floods, building on more than a decade of experience studying the impacts of disasters on children, families, and schools. She holds a master’s degree in sociology, where her thesis research focused on single mothers displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a certificate in women’s studies.