Laura Olson

Jacksonville State University

Contact Info
lolson@jsu.edu

Laura Olson has over 15 years of experience leading disaster recovery, hazard mitigation, climate adaptation, and resilience initiatives across the globe. She works with governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and directly with affected communities on organizational resilience, capacity-building, and change management in post-disaster contexts. Olson has worked with Housing and Urban Development, the White House's Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, American Red Cross, United Way, United Nations Development Program’s Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Cluster, National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, local Louisiana transportation research centers, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Major incidents she has responded to include Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil spill, Tuscaloosa tornado, Hurricane Sandy, Thai floods, Gaza Strip conflict, drought and flash flooding in Africa, and a number of smaller domestic and international disasters.

Olson’s scholarly work includes teaching in Georgetown University’s Emergency and Disaster Management program, and research projects with the United Nations University Institute for the Environment and Human Security, the Culture and Disaster Action Network, and Jacksonville State University’s Resilience Center. She holds a PhD in public administration from The George Washington University, master’s degrees in political science and German literature from the Karls-Ruprecht-Universität Heidelberg, and a bachelor's in political philosophy from Macalester College.