Scott B. Miles

Department of Environmental Studies, Huxley College of the Environment at WWU

Scott B. Miles
Assistant Professor

Office: AH 203
Phone: 360-650-2440
Email: scott.miles@wwu.edu
Mailing Address:
  Dept. of Environmental Studies
  WWU MS-9085
  516 High Street
  Bellingham, WA 98225-9085

I've spent my career learning about and working on disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, social vulnerability, science-intensive decision support, and collaborative planning. I was a member of the U.S. Geological Survey Western Region Earthquake Hazards Team for six years, where I developed hazards information tools for public decision-making using GIS. I received my Ph.D. in geography from University of Washington, where I studied the synergy between modeling, disaster mitigation, and deliberative democracy. I received a post-graduate diploma from the University of Edinburgh in GIS, with a focus on environmental modeling. My MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering is from University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where I focused on geotechnical earthquake engineering and numerical methods. At the USGS, I led development of a GIS-based model of earthquake-induced landslide hazards for use within collaborative planning situations. I have also worked for several years on a project funded by the Multi-disciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, developing a conceptual and prototype computer model of community recovery from disasters. Now I am particularly interested in how modeling can facilitate stakeholder involvement, as well as how stakeholders can aid in the development of hazard and risk models (or similar tools). In addition, I am researching participatory methods for social vulnerability assessment and building community resilience.