Ganapati, Nazife

Ganapati, Nazife Graduate Faculty

Positions

Professor, Public Policy and Administration , Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

ganapat@fiu.edu

biography

Dr. N. Emel Ganapati is a Professor in Public Administration at Florida International University (FIU). She holds a master’s degree in planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. degree in planning from the School of Policy, Planning and Development, University of Southern California in Los Angeles. At FIU, Dr. Ganapati teaches courses on empirical methods, emergency management, policy analysis and public participation. Prior to joining FIU, she taught at the University of Miami and the University of Southern California.

Dr. Ganapati’s research is dedicated to helping communities become more resilient by studying the capabilities of those affected by disasters (e.g., participation and social capital), the vulnerabilities of those who serve them (e.g., burnout), and the interdependencies within disaster management. Methodologically, she has been dedicated to enhancing qualitative and interdisciplinary methods in emergency management. Her work has been published in top public administration, planning, social science and disaster journals, including but not limited to Public Administration Review, Journal of the American Planning Association, Governance, Administration and Society, Public Performance and Management Review, International Journal of Public Administration, Social Science Quarterly, American Behavioral Scientist, Risk Analysis, Disasters, Natural Hazards Review, Natural Hazards, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Disaster Prevention and Management and the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters.

Dr. Ganapati is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Construction Safety Team (NCST) as the social science team leader investigating the June 24, 2021, partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Florida. Her responsibilities include conducting interviews with residents, first responders, family members and others with knowledge of the building’s condition, its collapse, and response activities. Dr. Ganapati also has served as the Principal Investigator (PI), Co-PI or senior expert in several grants funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Justice, Natural Hazard Center (NHC) (with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and NSF support), and the Ohio State University’s (OSU) Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. Her current grants deal with a number of topics ranging from post-disaster relocation, multi-sector stakeholder decision-making processes for resilience and the impact of concurrent disaster events (e.g., COVID-19, hurricanes) on first responders and nonprofits to disaster risk reduction in 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region. She received a number of research awards due to her achievements in research and scholarship, including: (1) 2021 Risk Analysis Journal Best Paper Award (for paper entitled “Cultivating Metacognition In Each Of Us: Thinking About “Thinking” In Interdisciplinary Disaster Research); (2) FIU’s 2012 Top Scholar Award; (3) the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP)’s 2006 Gill-Chin Lim Award for the Best Dissertation on International Planning; and (4) USC’s 2006 Jack Dyckman Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Planning. Her research and related service have been recognized by such media outlets as the Washington Times, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Weather Channel.

Dr. Ganapati was an associate behavioral and social science editor for the Natural Hazards Review journal, one of the top disaster journals. Additionally, she has served as a member of several committees that relate to the international, national or regional context, including: (1) Advisory Board for the Culture and Disaster Action (CADAN) Network; (2) the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy/ ACSP’s Curriculum Innovation Awards Task Force; (3) American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Executive Committee of the Section on Emergency and Crisis Management; and, (4) Resilient305 Collaborative in South Florida. In the past, she served an expert and panel reviewer for the NSF and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She was the Co-Chair of ACSP’s Global Planning Educators Interest Group (GPEIG). She received a Certificate of Recognition for Service Excellence from Florida International University in 2020 and a community award from the 10th Year Gölcük Earthquake Commemoration Committee due to her contributions to the recovery of Gölcük, the epicenter of the deadly 1999 earthquake in Turkey. She is also a recipient of Florida Education Fund’s 2018 William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award. Her doctoral students have held post-doctoral and assistant professor positions in such universities as Georgetown University, University of California Berkeley, Ohio State University, George Mason University, University of South Florida, and Minnesota State University.