Membership participation in the SSPEED Center is open to all tenure track and research faculty of University of Houston (UH).
Associate Membership is open to non-UH personnel.
The SSPEED Center at the University of Houston will strengthen interdisciplinary research, education and collaboration within the University and among a wide array of stakeholders from universities, local, state and national government agencies and the general public, and present them with interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities in the four different research objectives of the Center. These research areas bridge four research clusters within the University of Houston: Energy and Natural Resources, Community Advancement, Complex Systems, and Materials.
The focus objectives of SSPEED include:
- Severe storm forecasting and modeling and real-time flood warning
- Infrastructure risk modeling and management
- Evacuations and search-and-rescue modeling and mapping
- Education and outreach
The SSPEED Center will enhance local and national well-being and environmental and economic sustainability along the Gulf Coast, a region vital to the energy, petrochemical and tourism sectors. The need for better predictive tools linked to more efficient evacuation plans was evident during both Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and most recently Ike. Improved understanding will require a holistic and interdisciplinary approach within a Center with participation by experts in many fields. Typical disciplinary research within these areas will address some critical issues however; problems of severe storm prediction, warning, and response are complex and require an approach that includes experts in meteorology, storm prediction and hurricane surge, and urban flooding.
In addition, risk analysis, transportation and evacuation planning, social behavior and response, and infrastructure impacts must be better understood. All of these areas are integrated within the SSPEED Center. Accomplishing the focus objectives of the Center requires expertise from many different fields. That is what the Center aims to do – to bring together researchers from myriad areas of expertise to address these important objectives.
If you are interested in membership in the SSPEED Center, contact Maria Modelska at mjmodelska [at] uh.edu for more information.