Bio 

Jenniffer Marie Santos-Hernández is a Caribbean sociologist and disaster researcher; an alumna of the Disaster Research Center (DRC), the oldest and one of the leading research centers in the World devoted to research in the social aspects of disasters. Dr. Santos-Hernández is Co-Principal Investigator and co-lead of the Puerto Rico & Caribbean Regional Hub for Rising Voices, Changing Coasts: The Earth and Indigenous Science Convergence Large Scale Hub funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF Award # 2103843). With over twenty years of research experience, Santos-Hernández examines issues of risk communication and hazard adjustments, climate change adaptation, international development, policy transfers, community engagement, social vulnerability to disasters, and the increasing "rationalization" of emergency management. Her interests include population dynamics, disasters, collective behavior, race and ethnicity, social stratification, social movements, computational social science, and geographic information science. 

Dr. Santos has held appointments as research professor in sociology of disasters for Centro de Investigaciones Sociales (CIS) and founding academic chair of the Graduate Certificate in Planning for Disaster Risk Reduction of the Graduate School of Planning for the University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras, and as research associate in Population Dynamics, Climate Change, and Disasters for the Climate Change Science Institute (CCSI) and the Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) Group in the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL is a world-class research facility and the largest science and energy national laboratory in the U.S. Department of Energy system. At ORNL she conducted basic science research focused on climate change and population resettlement scenarios around Bangladesh and the Sahel region.

Recently completed research projects include Community Based Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Municipality of Dorado, Puerto Rico Climate Change Education Program, NSF Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (NSF UREx), Minority Scholars from Under-Represented Groups in Engineering and the Social Sciences (SURGE) Capacity in Disasters, Risk Communication in Concurrent Disasters, and Helping Affected Communities Engage in Resilience (HACER).