Dr Paul Barnes

Dr Paul Barnes is the Judith Neilson Research Fellow in Disaster Resilience within the School of Built Environment and Coordinator of the UNSW-wide Resilient Futures Collective. He holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Health Sciences and a Doctorate examining risk perception and organisational risk management within emergency response agencies. 

Paul has over 25 years of experience within public sector emergency management and as a practitioner-academic in risk and crisis management.  He previously served at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute where he established and lead the Risk and Resilience Program.  Prior to ASPI Paul served in a continuing academic role at the Queensland University of Technology and coordinated the Infrastructure Research Program at the Centre for Emergency & Disaster Management (CEDM).  As a Co-chief investigator and researcher, Paul has attracted more than $8M in external grant funding from sources ranging from the Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage), the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC) and the Defence Science Technology Group. 

He has experience in specialist public sector management roles focused on emergency and risk management, security policy development and as a tenured academic.  He has completed projects for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies, the European Commission (European Research Agency) and the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on national risk assessment frameworks.  

He currently maintains memberships of the World Economic Forum Expert Network (Risk & Resilience), the International Military Council on Climate and Security (Washington DC), UN Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) Working Group(s), and is a (non-Resident) Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

He also serves as a on the Advisory Board of the Torrens Resilience Initiative, Flinders University, Australia and as an adjunct Associate Professor within the School of Engineering and Information Management at the University of New South Wales/Australian Defence Force Academy.