On Anne’s first day at the IPO, she was warmly greeted by staff and briefly toured the impressive RADI building that houses the IRDR IPO. She sat down immediately with outgoing communications officer Charina Cabrido to understand the inner workings of IRDR’s communications program and followed that with an in-depth consultation with Kerry-Ann Morris, IRDR’s dedicated outgoing science officer.

Anne comes to IRDR after a decade working on DRR in more than 15 countries with INGOs such as Save the Children, CRS, and most recently Mercy Corps as their Director of Disaster Risk Reduction. She coordinated the 2013 design, review, publication and publicity for Toward Resilience: A guide to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and in 2014 developed the companion Principles in Practice e-learning course with the Disaster Ready Initiative. She helped found the US INGO Disaster Risk Reduction working group in 2006, served as its co-chair, and worked with the Global Network for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) on their seminal 2009 Views from the Frontline research report.

Before being lured into international development and the DRR world, Anne spent a decade working in the private sector (technology and pharmaceuticals). Academically her degrees are in Communications (Ph.D. U of Utah), American Civilization (A.M. Brown U), and Education (BS BYU). She comes to the IPO from her home in Portland, Oregon. To know more about Anne Castleton, see her LinkedIn profile or read her interview with the Disaster Ready Initiative.