Christopher Tremewan

Secretary General 

APRU

Dr Tremewan was elected as APRU’s 4th Secretary General and took up the role from June 2011.

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Before heading the APRU International Secretariat, he was the Vice-President/Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social anthropology from the University of Auckland, a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in political science (on Southeast Asian politics) from the University of Canterbury.

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He was elected a senior associate member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, in September 1991 from where he published the book The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore (Macmillan and St Martin’s Press, 1994, reprinted 1996). He was a visiting fellow at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 2003 and a visiting professor at Peking University in 2007 – 2008.

In 1995 he became the founding director of the New Zealand Asia Institute, which he led until 1999. Previously, he held positions as a senior consultant, executive secretary, and research director for international development organizations based in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo.

A specialist on social regulation in Southeast Asia, his research has recently focused on the internationalisation of higher education.

Yong-kyun Kim

Director General, National Disaster and Safety Control Center

Ministry of Interior and Safety, South Korea

Dr. Yong-kyun Kim is leading the National Disaster and Safety Control Center under the Ministry of Interior and Safety for the Government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). He has worked on resilience building, risk governance, climate change policies, public administration, technology policies, capacity development, and emergency management in Korea, the United States and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction through his 24-year professional and academic careers. He has recently been committed to improving national disaster & safety management system and resilience policies against catastrophic events and supporting international cooperation for coping with transboundary risk, such as fine dust and infectious disease, with other nations in line with sustainable development. He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea; Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, USA; Professional degree in Crisis, Risk, and Emergency Management from George Washington University, USA; and Ph.D. degree in Science and Technology Policy from Yonsei University, Korea. His research interests include resilience, emergency and risk management, crisis leadership, climate change, capacity development, and social stratification with regard to disaster and safety. He is the author of “Disaster Characteristics of Korea and Its Management (2018)” and co-author of “Disaster Risk Management in the Republic of Korea (2017).” 

Antonia Yulo Loyzaga

President of the National Resilience Council and

Chairperson of the International Advisory Board of the Manila Observatory

Ms. Yulo Loyzaga is the president of the National Resilience Council, a science and technology based public-private partnership aimed at the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Concurrently, she serves as the Chairperson of the International Advisory Board of the Manila Observatory. She is a member of the United Nations International Office for Disaster Risk

Reduction (UNDRR) Science and Technology Advisory Group (STAG), and Asia Pacific Science and Technology Academia Advisory Group (APSTAAG). She likewise serves on the Science

Advisory Board of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Center of Excellence-Taipei (IRDR ICoE).

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She is a Trustee of the Zuellig Family Foundation, the Manila Observatory and Ateneo de Naga University. She leads the Education and Training work theme of the UNDRR’s ARISE Philippines initiative.

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Prior to these appointments, Ms. Loyzaga was the Executive Director of the Manila Observatory from 2007-2016 and a Trustee of the Ateneo de Manila University from 2007-2017. During this period, she was appointed as a member of the Department of Science and Technology’s Committee on Space Technology Applications and the UNESCO National Commission’s Committee on Science and Technology.

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In 2013, she was given special recognition by the Armed Forces of the Philippines for her contributions to the Philippine military’s emergency disaster response operations during Super

Typhoon Haiyan.

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Ms. Loyzaga holds a Masters in Government from Georgetown University.

Takako Izumi

Associate Professor, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, and

Director of APRU Multi-Hazards Program

Takako Izumi is an associate professor at the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), Tohoku University, Japan since 2013. She also serves as Program Director of the Multi-Hazards Program under the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), which comprises 55 universities and academic institutes in the Pacific Rim. Her research interests include international and regional frameworks/

strategies for disaster risk reduction (DRR), international humanitarian assistance, and DRR initiatives at the local and community levels.

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Previously she worked for international NGO and UN agencies such as UN Habitat, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), UN Office for the Recovery Coordinator for Ache and Nias (UNORC) and UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (Current UNDRR).

She has been appointed as a member of UNDRR’s Asia-Pacific Science Technology and Academia Advisory Group (ASTAAG) since May 2015. She holds Ph.D. in Global Environmental Study from Kyoto University, Japan.  

Loretta Hieber Girardet

Chief of Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

Ms Loretta Hieber Girardet’s career with the United Nations spans 20 years, during which she has worked in various positions related to humanitarian assistance, development cooperation and public health.  She was appointed Chief of the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, based in Bangkok, Thailand, in December 2017.   

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Prior to assuming her current position, Ms. Hieber Girardet served as the Chief for Inter-Cluster Coordination of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), responsible for the humanitarian cluster approach, cash-based assistance and accountability to affected people. In 2016, Loretta oversaw the substantive sessions of the World Humanitarian Summit.

Previously, Ms. Hieber Girardet was Chief of Coordinated Assessments for OCHA and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, leading the global inter-agency process to develop a common humanitarian assessment approach. Ms. Hieber Girardet has contributed to humanitarian responses in most of the major crises in the past decade, leading inter-agency needs assessments and coordination platforms. She also served a Senior Policy Advisor for OCHA.  

Ms. Hieber Girardet’s service with the United Nations includes eight years (1998-2006) in various functions with the World Health Organisation, including serving as a Senior Programme Officer for Emergencies based in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She also was WHO's behaviour change specialist for HIV/AIDS programming, which included extensive field work in Africa.

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Prior to joining the UN system, Ms. Hieber Girardet was a founding member of Media Action International, one of the first NGOs to promote community engagement and accountability in crisis settings, managing projects in Albania, Kosovo, Mozambique and Pakistan.  Ms. Hieber Girardet holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and post-graduate work in psycho-social trauma related to conflict and disaster from the Harvard School of Public Health.  

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Loretta is the author of "Lifeline Media: Reaching Populations in Crises," one of the first books to actively promote greater accountability and community engagement in humanitarian and disaster contexts.   

Rajib Shaw

Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance

Keio University

Rajib Shaw is the professor in Graduate School of Media and Governance in Keio University. He is a Senior Fellow of Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan, and the Chairperson of SEEDS Asia and CWS Japan, two Japanese NGOs. He is also co-founder of a Delhi (India) based social entrepreneur startup Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (RIKA). He is the Co-chair of the United Nations Asia Science Technology Academic Advisory Group (ASTAAG) and Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) IPCC’s 6th Assessment report. He is the editor of a book series on disaster risk reduction, published by Springer and the Chief Editor of an academic journal Progress in Disaster Science by Elsevier. More of his work can be seen in: www.rajibshaw.org