Speakers | The Fifth Tzu Chi Forum

Keynote Speakers (In Order of Appearance)

Keynote Speakers	Country/Region	Bio
Bishop Gunnar Stålsett	Norway	Protestant, NORWAY Bishop Emeritus of Oslo, Church of Norway. Honorary President, Religions for Peace. Dr. Gunnar Stålsett, Bishop Emeritus of Oslo (Church of Norway, 1998-2005), served as moderator of the European Council of Religious Leaders and is an Honorary President of the World Council of Religions for Peace. Previously Stålsett served as general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (1984-1994) and a member of the World Council of Churches’ Executive Committee. Since 2006 he has served as Special Envoy of Norway to East Timor. Bishop Stålsett also co-chaired the XVI International AIDS Conference and is a member of UNAID’s International Advisory Group for AIDS2031. In addition, Stålsett was a member of the Council of 100 of the World Economic Forum and has spent 17 years as a member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. From 1972 to 1973 he was state secretary in the Ministry of Church Affairs, Culture, and Education; he served as a Norwegian parliamentarian during 1977 to 1981.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri	India	Dr. Pachauri was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2008 when he chaired the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC – UN Climate Panel). He was chairman of the IPCC between 2002 and 2014. Dr. Pachauri is also the founder of World Sustainable and Development Forum (WSDF). Dr. Rajendra Pachauri is an economist and an environmental scientist who has served as the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002. As an economist and environmental scientist of immense repute, Rajendra Pachauri is also the Director General of the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, an institution devoted to researching and promoting sustainable development.
Dr. Fumiko Kasuga	Japan	Global Hub Director – Japan, Future Earth Secretariat Senior Fellow, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan Visiting Professor, Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI), The University of Tokyo Fumiko Kasuga graduated from and received Ph.D. from The University of Tokyo. She has been working as a government researcher in the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) of Japan in the field of food safety, in particular, on microbiological risk assessment and epidemiology of foodborne diseases. She was Director at the National Institute of Health Sciences (2012-2016). Internationally she has been working in Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA), WHO Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) and the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF). Since April, 2016, she is Senior Fellow at National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES). She served as a Vice-President of Science Council of Japan, Japanese national academy, in 2011-2014. She was a member of former International Council for Science (ICSU)’s Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR) in 2012-2018. Since May, 2015, she has been serving as Global Hub Director – Japan of Future Earth, an international research programme for global sustainability. She has been involved in several processes related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by United Nations and those by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.
Kevin Smith	USA	As the Director for the DHS Center for Faith and Opportunity initiatives, Mr. Smith and his team promote developing partnerships between the public, faith and community based organizations, emergency managers and first responders to strengthen the resilience of our nation. This includes increasing faith-based and community engagement in support of the DHS Blue Campaign, the unified voice for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to combat human trafficking. Mr. Smith is a Certified Emergency Manager who has worked with faith and community based organizations for more than 20 years. Most recently, Mr. Smith served as the State Director for Emergency Disaster Services for The Salvation Army, Florida Division. While in Florida, he led the Salvation Army’s efforts to support the 2016 Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew and the 2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Outside Florida, he also supported the Salvation Army for the Haiti earthquake response in 2010, and served a leadership role during the South Carolina floods in 2015, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 in Houston, Texas.

Panel Discussion (In Order of Appearance)

Presenters	Country/Region	Bio
Dr. Wei-Sen Li	Taiwan	Secretary General, National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction.
Prof. Rajib Shaw	Japan	Rajib Shaw is a professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance in Keio University, Japan. He is also the Senior Fellow of Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan, and the Chairperson of SEEDS Asia and CWS Japan, two Japanese NGOs. He is also co-founder of a Delhi (India) based social entrepreneur startup Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (RIKA). Earlier, he was the Executive Director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) and was a Professor in Kyoto University. Professor Shaw is the Chair of the United Nations Science Technology Advisory Group (STAG) for disaster risk reduction; and also the Co-chair of the Asia Science Technology Academic Advisory Group (ASTAAG). He is also the CLA (Coordinating Lead Author) for Asia chapter of IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report. He is the editor-in-chief of the Elsevier’s journal “Progress in Disaster Science”, and series editor of a Springer book series on disaster risk reduction. Prof. Shaw has published more than 45 books and over 300 academic papers and book chapters.
Dr. Cristina Tirado	USA	Dr. Cristina Tirado works at the interface between science and policy related to climate change, health, food and sustainable development with the University, WHO, UNEP, UNFCCC, governments, and NGOs worldwide. She has served as WHO Regional Adviser in Europe and in Latin America, Scientist at the WHO Surveillance Program at the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin, Director of the PHI’s Center for Climate and Health in Oakland and adjunct professor at the UCLA School of Public Health, affiliated with the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. Dr. Tirado is Director of International Climate Initiatives at the LMU Center for Urban Resilience and serves as Secretariat of the Mediterranean Cities Climate Change Consortium. She is member of the UNFCCC Research constituency and adviser on Climate and Health for several UN organizations.
Prof. Douglas Paton	Australia	Douglas is Professor of Psychology at Charles Darwin University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Bandung Resilience Development Initiative in Bandung, Indonesia and a Research Fellow at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research in New Zealand. Douglas is a Technical Advisor on risk communication to the World Health Organization and a member of The Integrated Research for Disaster Reduction Committee established as part of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR). He is an Expert of International Standing with the Australian Research Council. In 2005 he was the Australian representative on the UNESCO Education for Natural Disaster Preparedness in the Asia-Pacific program established to learn and disseminate lessons from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. His research focuses on developing and testing models of community and organizational resilience for natural hazards, how comprehensive analyses of community disaster recovery can inform understanding of resilience and how it is developed and enacted in communities, and developing transdisciplinary approaches to disaster risk reduction research and practice. His work adopts an all-hazards, cross cultural approach. Work is being conducted in Australia (bushfire, flooding, tsunami), New Zealand (earthquake, volcanic), Japan (earthquake, volcanic), Indonesia (volcanic), Taiwan (earthquake, typhoon), and Portugal (bushfire). He has published 21 books, 118 book chapters and 169 peer reviewed articles. He is Editor of the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters and is on the Editorial Boards of Disasters, Disaster Communication, the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Disasters, the International Journal of Psychology, and the Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies.
Emeritus Professor Mutsu Hsu	Taiwan	Dr. Mutsu Hsu has been a professor of anthropology and vice-president at the Tzu Chi University. Currently an emeritus professor. He received his doctoral degree in anthropology from UC Berkeley and was a researcher and deputy-director at the Inst. of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. Being specialized in psychological and educational anthropology, Dr. Hsu has published and edited 14 books and about 80 articles on Taiwan indigenous peoples’ psychosocial adaptation and development. In the past ten years, he has conducted research on Tzu Chi Foundation’s charity works in Taiwan and abroad so as to expand the research capacity of charity (disaster) and development anthropology.
Brent H. Woodworth Chairman and CEO Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation	USA	Mr. Woodworth’s career spans over 40 years with extensive experience in global risk analysis, crisis management, business continuity, systems and collaborative partnership development. He has a distinguished history of working with governments, private sector corporations, academic institutions, faith community leaders, and non-profit organizations. Brent retired from IBM in 2007 (32-year career) as the Worldwide Segment Manager for the IBM Crisis Response Team. Brent was responsible for crisis management services, incident management, and associated consulting services for IBM sites and clients worldwide. Brent consults on a global basis with business leaders, non-profits, heads of state, ambassadors, government agencies, and military leaders as a subject matter expert (SME) on crisis event management and community resilience. Brent is a specialist in the development and implementation of advanced risk identification, mitigation, incident management, and recovery programs in environments of high stress including conflict zones. Brent is a regularly featured speaker on radio and television broadcasts along with industry conferences, government seminars, and senior executive / board meetings. Brent has written multiple articles on disaster management and has been a guest lecturer at colleges and universities including Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Wharton School of Business, US Naval Postgraduate Academy, University of Pennsylvania, USC, UCLA, Harvard and Yale Law Schools. Brent has worked for many years in cooperation with international UN relief agencies and NGO’s including: WHO, WFP, OCHA, World Bank, UNHCR, World Vision, International Red Cross, and USAID.
Trevor Riggen	USA	Trevor Riggen was appointed Senior Vice President, Disaster Cycle Services, American Red Cross on January 2, 2019. In this role, Trevor leads a team of Red Cross staff and volunteer experts in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery who develop and implement programs and conduct operations aimed at preventing and alleviating human suffering in the face of emergencies within the United States and its territories. Prior to this, Trevor served as Chief Executive Officer of the Northern California Coastal Region where he provided management oversight of Red Cross services and supported a team of more than 7,000 volunteers and employees who responded to more than 800 local disasters each year and served more than eight million residents with lifesaving programs. Prior to coming to Red Cross, Trevor held several leadership positions with community-based organizations in Illinois and the Washington, DC metro area. These positions focused on literacy, crime prevention, poverty reduction, education and emergency planning for public school districts. He also served in the Peace Corps in Morocco where he developed local agricultural cooperatives. Trevor earned his B.S. in Political Science from the University of Illinois and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University.
Dr. Rey-Sheng Her	Taiwan	Dr. Rey-Sheng Her is the director of Department of Literature and History of Tzu Chi Foundation, Research Fellow of Oxford University, Associate Professor of Tzu Chi University, and a senior news anchor and TV program producer. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Peking University. Dr. Her has delivered speeches on Tzu Chi at Harvard University, Oxford University, Peking University, Renmin University of China, and the University of Hong Kong, and many international symposia. In 2011, he presented Tzu Chi Experience in Disaster Relief and Humanity Culture at Harvard University
Professor Jenn-Chuan Chern	Taiwan	Professor of The Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, and CEO, the Morakot Post-Disaster Reconstruction Council, Executive Yuan
Dr. Li-ju Jang	Taiwan	Dr. Li-ju Jang is an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology. She received her MSW from Brigham Young University and PhD from University of Denver. Her interest areas are human response to natural disaster, disaster preparedness, community resilience, posttraumatic growth, and post-disaster reconstruction. She is also interested in post-disaster community empowerment projects.
Dr. Chun-Kuan Shi	Taiwan	Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Tzu Chi University
Professor Wei-Ling Chiang	Taiwan	National Central University, Former Minister of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan)
Dr. Chao-Han Liu	Taiwan	Corresponding Research Fellow of Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA), Former Vice-President of Academia Sinica
Dr. Shaw Chen Liu	Taiwan	Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The 29th Academician, Academia Sinica, Adjunct Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences in National Central University and National Taiwan University
Dr. Shih-Chun Candice Lung	Taiwan	Research Fellow of Research Center for Environmental Changes and Director of International affairs, Center for Sustainability Science, in Academia Sinica
Dr. Chi-Yuan Liang	Taiwan	Adjunct Research Fellow, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Researcher of Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research
Professor Shu-Li Huang	Taiwan	Professor, Graduate Institute of Urban Planning in National Taipei University
Dr. Yin Hao Chiu	Taiwan	Dean, College of City Management in University of Taipei, Member of Urban Planning Division of Construction and Planning Agency, Ministry of the Interior
Rev. Fletcher Harper	USA	Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an international interfaith environmental organization. He has developed a range of innovative programs to make GreenFaith a global leader in the religious-environmental movement. In the past four years, he coordinated the 2015 OurVoices campaign, which mobilized religious support globally for COP 21, led organizing of faith communities for the People’s Climate Marches in NYC and Washington DC, helped lead the faith-based fossil fuel divestment movement, supported the launch of the global Interfaith Rainforest Initiative, and co-founded Shine, a faith-philanthropy-NGO campaign to end energy poverty with renewable energy by 2030. He helps lead GreenFaith’s new local organizing initiative, creating multi-faith GreenFaith Circles in communities globally. Fletcher accepted GreenFaith’s Many Faith’s, One Earth Award from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2009 and was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2011. He is the author of GreenFaith: Mobilizing God’s People to Protect the Earth (Abingdon Press, 2015).
Bruce Knotts	USA	Bruce Knotts is the Director of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office. Bruce was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia. He worked for Raytheon in Saudi Arabia and on a World Bank contract in Somalia, before he joined the Department of State as a U.S. diplomat in 1984. In 2004, Bruce was elected to the Board of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA). Bruce retired from the Foreign Service in 2007 and joined the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office as its Executive Director at the beginning of 2008.
Dr. Hsin-I Hsiao	Taiwan	Dean of International Affairs, Tzu Chi University International College
Dr. Wen-Ling Chien	Taiwan	Associate Professor, Tzu Chi University International College
Dr. Alagu Perumal Ramasamy	India	Associate Professor of Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Loyola College, Visiting Professor in Tzu Chi University International College