Investigate | UC Disaster Resilience Network

Overview

UCDRN’s Investigate Pillar helps move disaster resilience research from promising ideas to practical impact. We incubate interdisciplinary initiatives, convene teams across campuses and sectors, support proposal development, and connect researchers with partners positioned to translate knowledge into action.

Our work spans disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, wildfire resilience, public health, critical infrastructure, emerging technologies, and community-centered implementation. To date, UCDRN and its partners have helped leverage more than $2 million in research support, including early successes in wildfire resilience, atmospheric modeling, environmental monitoring, and prescribed fire research with local Chumash leadership in the Santa Barbara region, UC Nature, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and UC researchers.

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Looking Forward: UCDRN Research Armada

UCDRN is building the Research Armada: a coordinated network of leading University of California research centers designed to address society’s most complex and interconnected risks.

The Armada is bringing together expertise in artificial intelligence, earthquake resilience, wildfire science, cyber and data integrity, pandemic preparedness, antimicrobial resistance, One Health, climate adaptation, infrastructure resilience, and community-centered implementation. Supported by seed funding, proposal development, rapid-response capacity, shared infrastructure, and cross-sector partnerships, the Armada is designed to move ideas from campus to field.

By strengthening collaboration across campuses, disciplines, and sectors, the Research Armada will help position the University of California as a global leader in applied disaster resilience research while delivering practical benefits to the communities we serve.

FIAT LUX. UCDRN core leadership are in the process of turning the lights on, engaging key partners to raise our organization to new heights, as this elevated system-wide pillar promises an outsized return on investment in lives protected, systems stabilized, and resilience replicated regionally - with national and global implications. Founding members include:

UCDRN is exploring an Adaptive Futures Hub concept with UCLA that could connect existing strengths in environmental science, engineering, public health, urban policy, and climate adaptation. The Hub is a proposed UCDRN-affiliated initiative, not an established campus center or approved program. Its vision includes interdisciplinary proposal development, training, and practical partnerships across California and the Pacific Rim; specific funding, institutional sponsorship, and partner commitments remain to be confirmed.

UCDRN is exploring a pandemic and infectious-disease resilience collaboration that could draw on established UC San Diego capabilities, including IPATH, PREPARE, and CHARM. These programs are not represented here as a formally approved UCDRN center or as having committed to joint governance or funding. The proposed collaboration would connect relevant expertise in infectious threats, antimicrobial resistance, and public-health preparedness with UCDRN’s cross-campus resilience work.

Abhijit Ghosh, UC Riverside professor of geophysics

UCDRN and UC Riverside are developing EQ-ASPIRE (Earthquake AI Science, Policy, and Resilience), led by UCR Professor of Geophysics Abhijit (“Abhi”) Ghosh. The proposed collaboration will connect AI-enabled earthquake science with policy and resilience practice. EQ-ASPIRE is an emerging research initiative, not a formally established UCDRN center; funding, institutional authorization, partnerships, infrastructure, and implementation pathways remain subject to review and confirmation.

UCDRN is exploring a UC Irvine wildfire and cascading-hazards research node that could build on campus expertise in wildfire science, AI, hydrology, and infrastructure resilience. This is a proposed UCDRN-affiliated initiative, not an approved center. Its vision is to connect research on fire, flooding, and debris-flow risks with practical tools for communities and emergency managers; specific seed funding, agency collaborations, and deliverables should be described as active only when confirmed.

UC Berkeley’s established Risk and Security Lab provides research capacity in cybersecurity, wargaming, and security policy. UCDRN is exploring how this expertise could contribute to a broader resilience initiative addressing cyber and other cascading risks. That potential UCDRN initiative is still developing; proposed workshops, deployments, shared systems, and cross-node integrations are not presented as completed or institutionally committed activities.

UC Davis’s proposed Research Armada hub would build on the One Health and Planetary Health leadership of Dr. Woutrina Smith and the campus’s established strengths in disaster preparedness, veterinary and wildlife response, climate-resilient agriculture, and statewide extension. It would connect human, animal, and ecosystem health with resilient infrastructure and food systems, bringing UC Davis expertise together with partners across the UC system. Through collaborative research, training, and community partnerships, the hub would help translate this work into practical approaches for preparedness, response, and recovery across California.