Interdisciplinary Research Bolsters Nation’s Resliience

Crisis can strike suddenly and on a large scale: take a major hurricane or tsunami, for example. It can also strike more gradually and on a small scale, such as the breakdown of the human body as it ages. To be better prepared for risks that can threaten our health and well-being on the national and cellular levels (and everything in between), dozens of researchers across Northeastern’s colleges are working to bolster the broad understanding of resilience.

Through a new seed grant program supported by Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute, 11 interdisciplinary teams of researchers from all of Northeastern’s colleges are studying vastly different facets of resilience—including combatting arthritis and better understanding the role gender plays in community resilience—so we can bounce back better and stronger when we get knocked down.

“The resilience imperative recognizes and responds to the reality that risk can never be eliminated,” observes Stephen Flynn, founding director of the Global Resilience Institute. “As individuals and societies, we will continue to be buffeted by an array of hazards that are growing with greater frequency and intensity.  What we’re hoping to accomplish with these seed grants is to tap and cross-pollinate the latest research from a variety of disciplines to inform and advance individual, community, and societal resilience.”

One of the 11 projects will focus on improving quality of life as we age. Another will center on how women respond to disaster.