The Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service will host a lecture by Charles Perrow, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Yale University, tomorrow, March 27 from 3:30-5 p.m. in Todd 116.
The lecture, titled “Disasters Evermore? Reducing our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters” will cover topics of US protection from natural, industrial and terrorist disasters through the reduction of vulnerabilities. Reduction techniques include deconcentrating populations in risky areas, and deconcentrating the storage of hazardous materials, to name a few.
Charles Perrow is an internationally renowned organizational theorist and sociologist. He wrote Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay in 1972 and also wrote the award-winning Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies in 1984 (revised 1999) that deals with his theory of normal accidents; catastrophic accidents that are inevitable in tightly coupled and complex systems. His theory predicts that failures will occur in multiple and unforeseen ways that are virtually impossible to predict.
The lecture is free to the public.
