Dr Marla Petal

Marla has more than 15 years of international experience in public education for disaster risk reduction and comprehensive school safety. Her experience includes leadership in all aspects of project cycle management, research, policy development, consultation and training. Her educational background is in urban planning, community organization, and social service policy and administration. Marla's doctoral research to support evidence-based public education for earthquake safety, was on the causes of deaths and injuries in the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake in Turkey.

Marla has conceived and managed successful projects for USAID-OFDA: Istanbul Community Impact Project, Basic Disaster Awareness in Turkish Schools, and the Central Asia Earthquake Safety Initiative and has delivered highly successful programs of e-learning self-study on Household Disaster Planning and School Disaster Management for the Ministry of Education in Turkey that have delivered more than 1m. lessons and 150,000 successful course completions by teachers.

Marla has been with Save the Children Australia for 2 years. She has also been co-director of Risk RED, and consultant to UNISDR, UNICEF, UNESCO, IFRC, ADRRN, World Vision, and UMCOR. She is author of dozens of reports and guidance documents, chapters, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, and presentations in disaster risk reduction education and developed a broad range of educational materials.