Dr. Yvonne Rademacher

Yvonne Rademacher holds a Joint Honours Degree in Law and Politics (LL.B.) from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, as well as a Master in Law (LL.M.) from the College of William and Mary, Virginia. In 2013, she was awarded a Ph.D. in Disaster Science and Management from the University of Delaware/Disaster Research Center. 

For ten years prior to starting her Ph.D., Yvonne worked in humanitarian emergency assistance and post-conflict recovery, mainly with the United Nations, covering the entire disaster management cycle and primarily addressing the needs of refugees and displaced populations.

Her field assignments included work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees after the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs after the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka and the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, the World Food Programme during the droughts in Somalia and Kenya in 2006 and 2007, and United Nations Development Programme as Early Recovery Adviser on internal displaced in Pakistan in 2009. In addition, she also served as OCHA Desk Officer for West Africa in New York from 2001 to 2004.

After completing her PhD, Yvonne returned to supporting UNDP's early recovery efforts in the Philippines following the devastation of Typhoon Hayan in 2013, and worked as Planning Officer and Executive Officer to the Chief of Staff for the OSCE in Ukraine from 2014-2017.

Having served in advisory positions to Heads of Mission, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators, Yvonne’s professional forte is programme/project management, strategic planning and multi-stakeholder, multi-sector coordination. In recent years, she has focused on the nexus between disaster management and climate change, in particular in urban settings.

Having started her career as a practitioner in the field of international emergency assistance, her academic work is primarily concerned with helping to bridge the gap between science and practice, facilitating timely contributions to policy discussions and developing conceptual frameworks as useful, practical tools for the emergency management community.

Holding a PhD in Disaster Science and Management with a focus on community disaster management assets, she has conducted most of her research in rural farm and mountain communities. Her academic research focuses on three areas: (1) the identification and activation processes of community disaster management assets; (2) governance structures and policies linking institutional emergency management with civil society; and (3) the nexus between disaster management and climate change.