My name is Mark Arango a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography advised by Helen Greatrex and a scholar in Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS). My research interest is broadly on climate and disaster risk management with interest in Sub-Saharan region. I want to promote climate innovative and sustainable approaches within the humanitarian sector for mitigating the ever increasing climate related disasters such as drought and floods. This will help in mitigating the disaster impacts on vulnerable communities before its occurrence and also influence policy making within the larger disaster risk management sphere.
I earned my BSc degree in Meteorology and MSc degree in climate change from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to joining Penn State University, I was climate risk advisor and researcher at Kenya Red Cross Society and UN World Food Programme implementing flood and drought anticipatory action programme. My work focused on using climate forecast information to design trigger model for activating anticipatory actions geared towards preventing immediate impacts of both floods and drought on the vulnerable communities.