Sudha Arlikatti

Sudha Arlikatti is an architect-planner turned academician with over 19 years of teaching and disaster research experience in India, USA and the UAE. Currently, she is a Professor and Research Head at the Amrita School for Sustainable Development, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, a multi-disciplinary, research-intensive, No.1 private university system in India, with a vibrant student population of over 24,000 and 1700+ strong faculty spread across eight campuses. Through their flagship Live-in-Labs®, a multidisciplinary experiential learning program, she is guiding students in conducting participatory action research in the villages of India, to develop and deploy sustainable co-designed solutions to mitigate current rural challenges.

She is a member of the Civil20 (C20) working group titled “Sustainable and Resilient Communities: Climate, Environment, and Net Zero Targets” to provide a platform for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) around the world in bringing a non-government and non-business voice to the G20 deliberations under the Indian Presidency in 2023. She is also the past Vice President of the Research Committee on Disasters for the International Sociological Association.

Arlikatti’s research interests include risk communication and protective action decision making in multi-ethnic communities responding to tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and biological threats; disaster sheltering and housing recovery; and individual and organizational resiliency. She has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, Texas Department of State Health Services, Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity, and other intramural funds. Her works have appeared in notable journals including Disasters, Disaster Prevention and Management, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Natural Hazards Review, Natural Hazards, and Risk Analysis.

Arlikatti holds a doctorate in Urban and Regional Science with an emphasis in Environmental Planning and Hazards Management from Texas A&M University, a Masters’ in City Planning from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and a Bachelors in Architecture from Pune University.