Award Winners

Disability and Disasters Award

The Disability and Disasters Award supports people with disabilities working in disasters, as well as those who care for, study, or advocate on behalf of those with disabilities. Award funds will allow the recipient to attend the annual Natural Hazards Workshop and the Researchers or Practitioners Meetings that follow. The 2025 winners are:

Angela Frederick is Associate Professor of Sociology at The University of Texas at El Paso, whose expertise spans the areas of medical sociology, the sociology of disability, and environmental sociology. Her scholarship has garnered awards from multiple sections of the American Sociological Association.

Her forthcoming book, Disabled Power: A Storm, A Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster, to be published by NYU Press, features findings from dozens of interviews with people with disabilities and parental caregivers who endured the bulk power failure during Winter Storm Uri, which hit Frederick’s home state of Texas in February 2021. Frederick conducted these interviews with the support of a Quick Response Research Award from the Natural Hazards Center. She argues that the vulnerability of people with disabilities during the storm was not an inevitable consequence of individual disabled bodies. Rather, disability vulnerability was “produced” through a policy process that “disabled” vital infrastructure like power, water, and emergency response systems.

Frederick also emphasizes another meaning of the term “disabled power,” that is, the individual and collective resilience of Texans with disabilities. Contrary to dominant tropes that portray disabled people as passive victims or as objects of rescue in disaster contexts, Frederick demonstrates that Texans with a wide range of disabilities employed remarkably creative strategies to survive the storm.

Frederick earned her PhD in sociology from The University of Texas at Austin in 2012. In her scholarly work, she aims to highlight the vital stories, knowledge, and skills that disabled people can share in a time of increasingly frequent and severe disasters.

---

Katherine (Kate) M. Thorstad is a staff attorney at Disability Law United, where she leads the disaster and environmental justice practice. Thorstad is advancing legal strategies that will mandate more accessible and effective disaster planning, preparedness, and response. She also serves as vice director of the American Bar Association’s Disaster Legal Services program and is a policy team member on their Standing Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness.

Thorstad came to Disability Law United after working as an Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Fellow at Disability Rights Louisiana, where she directly represented disabled survivors on disaster-related legal issues. Thorstad is admitted to practice law in the state of Louisiana. She earned her bachelor’s degree in government from Dartmouth College and her juris doctor from New York University School of Law.

To see a list of all previous winners, please click here: Disability and Disasters Award Winners

---

Mary Fran Myers Scholarship Winners

The Mary Fran Myers Scholarship recognizes outstanding individuals who share Myers' commitment to disaster research and practice and have the potential to make a lasting contribution to reducing disaster vulnerability. The 2025 winners are:

Dana Murray is a cultural heritage professional currently working towards her PhD in information at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her research explores the social and behavioral impact of extreme weather events on gallery, library, archive, and museum (GLAM) professionals as they seek to fulfill their duty to their collections in crisis situations.

Striving to disseminate her research with GLAM associations and institutions, Murray’s goal is to model better support for gallery, library, archive, and museum practitioners in moments of crisis and establish interdisciplinary connections in the process. She advocates for emergency training within the GLAM sector through her memberships in the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice, the National Trust for Canada’s disaster working group, and the Association of Registrars and Collection Specialists’ advocacy committee.

Murray completed her Master of Arts in religion and public life from Carleton University and her Master of Arts in museum studies from the University of Toronto. As a teaching assistant for the University of Toronto’s Master of Museum Studies program, Murray also contributes to the professional development of emerging museum practitioners.

Oluwaseun Olowoporoku is an urban development and resilience expert with the World Bank Group. Since 2022, he has been developing interdisciplinary approaches to urban planning, climate adaptation, and disaster risk management, especially in East and West African countries.

Olowoporoku’s work includes developing post-disaster and recovery building programs, assisting cities in prioritizing urban resilience investments, and developing financing and capacity building programs for urban management and disaster preparedness and response. He is currently working on projects to enhance urban livability and resilience, including managing forced displacements in Nigeria and Sierra Leone and strengthening risk-sensitive land use planning in Ethiopia.

Olowoporoku is an author of many international peer-reviewed papers on hazard and risk management and the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the World Bank Vice President Unit Award for outstanding team achievement, the World Bank African Fellowship, and the Strengthening Advisory Capacities for Land Governance in Africa Fellowship, organized by the German Academic Exchange Service.

Olowoporoku holds a PhD in urban and regional planning from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. His doctoral research examined public perceptions of environmental hazards and risks, exploring how this understanding can enhance the design of effective disaster risk reduction programs in Nigeran urban areas. His professional aspirations center around exploring conventional and alternative approaches to enhance urban resilience, manage disaster risks, and operationalize climate adaptation programs while improving public understanding and informing policy decisions in these areas.

Mohammad Newaz Sharif is pursuing a PhD in public affairs at the University of Central Florida, specializing in emergency and crisis management. His research focuses on bridging the gap between research and practice through innovative strategies for building stronger, more resilient communities. Sharif holds a bachelor’s degree in disaster management from Patuakhali Science and Technology University, a master’s in public policy from the University of Erfurt, and a second master’s in environmental economics from the University of Dhaka, providing him with a multidisciplinary foundation for his work.

Driven by a passion for education and research, Sharif strives to prepare future professionals to address real-world challenges in the field of emergency management. He is currently working on transformative projects for underserved communities, including the National Science Foundation-funded CIVIC REACH Hub initiative, developing mobile resilience hubs to provide pre- and post-disaster necessities during crisis and science education in non-emergency times. Sharif is also a researcher for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-funded initiative on green stormwater infrastructure for flood risk mitigation. Through his collaboration with the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management at the University of Central Florida, Sharif supports local nonprofits in Central Florida region to strengthen community-focused environmental sustainability and disaster resilience efforts.

Before pursuing his PhD, Sharif gained extensive professional expertise with organizations like the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, CARE Bangladesh, and the United Nations. In these roles, he contributed to developing strategic and scalable solutions to support marginalized communities during emergencies, further solidifying his commitment to humanitarian work.

Read more about the 2025 winners as well as past scholarship recipients on the Mary Fran Myers Scholarship Winners page.