When disaster strikes, how do we rebuild...and do we do it differently? The answer might start with something simpler than we think: listening to the people already living with risk.

In this episode, we chat with Ben Raschnock, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University, whose work sits at the intersection of civil engineering, operations research, and real-world decision-making.

Ben studies how disasters don't just destroy things. They cut people off from what they need most. Floodwaters block roads. Power outages shutter grocery stores. A preferred doctor becomes unreachable. His research reframes community resilience through one powerful lens: access to essential services.

We also dive into the bigger picture of aging infrastructure, climate surprises that break models, and why the most valuable data in disaster research might already exist in the community conversations.

Two veteran risk analysts reflect on how scientists, academics, and federal employees (both former and current) are planning for the day agencies can be rebuilt. Adam Finkel, professor at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health and former head of regulation at OSHA, and Vicki Bier, retired faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, make the case that the worst thing reformers could do is simply restore the status quo. After decades of regulatory running on autopilot, a once-in-a-generation disruption may be the opening we've been waiting for.

Biotechnology is advancing faster than ever before, and the stakes have never been higher. In this episode, Dr. Christopher Cummings, lead for the Center for Health Engineering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, breaks down why the convergence of biotech and artificial intelligence is creating both unprecedented opportunities and existential risks.

From gene-edited foods that could revolutionize agriculture to AI-designed viruses that could destabilize nations, Dr. Cummings explores the delicate balance between innovation and oversight. He reveals why traditional regulatory frameworks are struggling to keep pace and how "information hazards" are forcing scientists to rethink transparency itself.

We dive into the ethical minefield of black-boxed AI systems, designing biological solutions, the growing trust gap between lab and consumer, and what it means when AI can "de-skill" biotechnology to the point where expertise is no longer required to create dangerous organisms.

Topics covered: CRISPR and gene editing, AI convergence, biosafety and bioweapons, public trust in GMOs, generational attitudes toward biotech, risk communication, international cooperation, and the future of governance in an accelerating technological landscape.

In this episode of Let's Talk Risk, we're diving into a conversation with two leaders in global development: Abhilash Panda from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction—the team responsible for delivering the Sendai Framework worldwide—and Jordan Schwartz, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest source of multilateral financing for Latin America and the Caribbean.

We discuss why our institutions aren't built to handle systemic risk, why the term "resilience" means completely different things to different people within the same organization, and what would need to change if we actually wanted to protect the systems we depend on. Listen now!

Khara Grieger, assistant professor of environmental health and risk assessment at NC State University, joins Dr. Sandra Alday to discuss emerging nanotechnologies and their unique applications. Grieger discusses avenues to managing the risks of nanotech development in biotechnology and genetic engineering, as well as the rise of artificial intelligence.

How do we keep elections secure in a world of evolving technology and human error? In this episode, Dr. Sandra Alday sits down with Dr. Natalie Scala, professor and researcher at Towson University, to explore the complex interplay between people and machines in American voting systems. From the shift to vote-by-mail and the risks posed by flash drives, to the critical role of poll workers and the potential future of digital voting, Natalie shares insights from her research on election integrity. Listen now!

This research will be presented December 7-10, 2025 at the annual SRA Conference in Washington D.C.

Dr. Dominic Balog-Way and Dr. Katherine McComas of Cornell University join Sandra Alday for a compelling episode on their paper titled "Unpacking the Risk of Misinformation: A Communication-Based Critique" published in Risk Analysis. The risk researchers, who first connected at the 2011 SRA Conference and are now close coworkers, have examined the ways people try to place agency and intent on messaging in order to make sense of communication.

You can watch the webinar they hosted on this topic at sra.org/events-webinars, or consider registering for SRA 2025. You might meet your future collaborator!

In this latest episode, Dr. Sandra Alday is joined by two guests from the University of Melbourne: Dr. Anna Kosovac and Dr. Olivia Meehan. Together, they've created a course that addresses the subjectivity of risk and how people make decisions based on their comfort level with uncertainty. Incorporating the humanities into the risk classroom helps us move away from the limitations of rationality.