Ebru A. Gencer

Ebru Gencer is a scholar and practitioner of disaster risk reduction, climate resilience building, and sustainable urban development. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, the Founding Director of the Center for Urban Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience (CUDRR+R) in New York City, a Senior Urban Resilience Adviser at the World Bank, and an Associate Editor of the Progress in Disaster Science Journal. 

Her doctoral dissertation (Columbia University, 2007) examined “The Interplays between Natural Disasters, Vulnerability and Sustainable Development” and received a World Bank Young Scientist Applied Research Grant. From 2015 to 2020, she was the Chair of the Urban Planning Advisory Group to UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. She was also a Steering Committee member of the UN’s Making Cities Resilient Campaign and its Global Alliance for Urban Crises. Ebru Gencer has worked on projects in South-Eastern Europe, Turkey, Latin America and the Caribbean regions including with positions at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the Euro-Mediterranean Climate Change Center in Venice, Italy, as well as consultancies for the United Nations system. At CUDRR+R, she undertook a climate resilient and inclusive development project in Colombia, El Salvador, and Argentina. 

Ebru Gencer is the author of several books and articles on the nexus between urban risk, climate change, and sustainable development, among others: Learning Modules on Resilient Cities and Territories (UCLG, UN-Habitat and UNDRR 2020), The Handbook for Local Government Leaders: How to Make Cities More Resilient (UNISDR 2017), The Interplay Between Urban Development, Vulnerability and Risk Management (Springer 2013), (as a coordinating lead author) the Urban Climate Change Research Network’s Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and (as a contributing author) Words into Action Guide: Using Traditional and Indigenous Knowledges for Disaster Risk Reduction (ICCROM and UNDRR, 2022).