Takako Izumi is a Professor and Deputy Director of IRIDeS at Tohoku University and the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies at Tohoku University, Japan, and also serves as a Professor at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies. Her research focuses on international disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies, humanitarian assistance, multi-hazard and complex disaster risk, and community-based disaster risk reduction.
She serves as director of the Multi-Hazards (MH) program, started in 2013 by the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), a consortium of 64 leading research institutions in the Pacific Rim.
Before joining Tohoku University, she spent more than 15 years working in the fields of DRR, disaster response, recovery, and development with NGOs and various United Nations agencies, including UN-Habitat, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), UN Office of the Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias (UNORC), and UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).
Since May 2015, she has been serving as a member of the Asian-Pacific Science and Technology Advisory Group (APSTAG) established by UNDRR to support the efforts of governments and stakeholders in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for DRR.
She holds a Ph.D. in Global Environmental Studies from Kyoto University, Japan.
