Dr Steven Curnin

Dr Steven Curnin’s project began with the Bushfire CRC and investigated multi-agency emergency management coordination to develop a conceptual framework that identified the core requirements of liaison officers working at state level control centres. Findings from his research were encompassed into operational doctrine for liaison officers in several state level control centres.

After completing his PhD, Steve worked as an emergency management advisor in the critical infrastructure sector. He is now a Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania and was a researcher on the CRC project, Improving decision making in complex multi-team environments. Through this project, Steve and his colleague A/Prof Ben Brooks developed two cognitive decision tools and training aides to enhance the decision-making capability of practitioners in emergency management. Both tools – the Psychological Safety Checklist and the Cognitive Bias Aide Memoire – were featured in Hazard Note 73 and are being used by emergency managers and local councils. They are available on the CRC website.

As a member of the Resilience Expert Advisory Group for Critical Infrastructure Resilience, Steve has extended CRC research to develop a publication released by the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs in 2018. The publication offers six characteristics of the strategic decision-making process to assist stakeholders within the business community to better understand and apply the principles of decision making during a crisis. In addition, Steve conducts regular masterclasses for the critical infrastructure sector on decision making.

As Director of the Disaster Resilience Research Group at the University of Tasmania, Steve conducts regular masterclasses, drawing on his CRC research, for the critical infrastructure sector, emergency managers and local councils on how to optimise decision making. Steve is now also the course coordinator of the Graduate Certificate in Organisational Resilience and lectures in emergency management. He was awarded a prestigious research grant under the Discovery Early Career Research Award for 2021, which will allow him to continue his longstanding history of effective collaboration with emergency management agencies.