It is with sadness that Natural Hazards Research Australia received the news of the passing of Prof Douglas Paton in late April. Douglas was a friend to many in the natural hazards research space through his involvement in the both the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and Bushfire CRC.
Douglas led the Bushfire CRC’s research on effective risk communication for many years and was a PhD supervisor to Dr Briony Towers and Dr Tim Prior during the Bushfire CRC. Most recently, through the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, Douglas was part of research teams on tsunami warnings and community risk management in remote northern Australia, as well as supervising Dr Steve Sutton and Dr Miles Crawford for their PhDs.
Douglas was a Professor at Charles Darwin University, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra, a Senior Research Fellow at the Bandung Resilience Development Initiative (Indonesia) and a Research Fellow at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (New Zealand). He worked internationally with the UNESCO Education for Natural Disaster Preparedness in the Asia-Pacific, UNDRR and the World Health Organisation. His research developed and tested theories of adaptive and resilient capacity in communities using all-hazards and cross-cultural approaches, while his most recent work developed transformative approaches to community capacity building during disaster recovery, using the visual and performing arts to support disaster recovery. Douglas published 24 books and roughly 200 peer-reviewed papers and chapters with over 260 collaborators around the world. In 2022, his last book Advanced Introduction to Disaster Risk Reduction was published.
To honour Douglas and to continue his critically important work, his family, partner and closest collaborators have created the Douglas Paton Memorial Scholarship. Douglas’ family and partner will contribute funds to start this scholarship and award. The scholarship will be hosted by Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR), which Douglas co-created and which houses the Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies that he established. If you wish, donations to the Scholarship can be made via Massey University (please make sure you select the Douglas Paton Memorial Scholarship under ‘Designation’).
Douglas’ insight, knowledge and mentorship will be greatly missed.