Sahar Derakhshan

Sahar Derakhshan is a Ph.D student in geography at the University of South Carolina. Her research interest is to study and assess the effect of political tendencies, social and economic status, and religious and cultural institutions in taking action to foster change in disaster recovery, to build back a safer and more resilient community. Derakhshan's experience is in the field of disaster management. She became interested in natural hazards’ risk mitigation after the Bam earthquake in 2003 in Iran, which led her to study disaster management after one year of professional experience as a civil engineer. She continued her studies in public policy at the University of California Berkeley and after working in both the industry and at research institutions, she decided to continue her education with a focus on geospatial inequalities under the guidance of Dr. Susan L. Cutter.