Doctoral Researcher Lauren Traczykowski Speaks at Themes in Emergency Services 2014

One of the appealing aspects of working in the field of Global Ethics is that it provides an opportunity for cross-discipline research. Last week, Lauren Traczykowski, a Global Ethics PhD student, applied ethics to natural disaster intervention at a Nottingham Trent University conference. Her presentation focused on issues of leadership in the wake of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and the 2010 Haitian earthquake. In it she questioned ethical assumptions underpinning natural disaster response. In particular, she argued that the possibility of military intervention for natural disasters is ethically permissible and ethically required if we are to adequately support those affected by a natural disaster and, at the same time, make headway into actually addressing operational lessons learned.

The conference was titled Themes in Emergency Services 2014 and is hosted biannually by the Emergency Services Research Unit (ESRU) within NTU. This kind of academic-practitioner forum is beneficial because it means that there can be a cross-pollination of ideas. Ultimately, this means that the way we act will be influenced by both experience and research. For natural disasters, better action means better response – and that means more lives saved.

For more information on Lauren’s research, check her website http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/ptr/departments/philosophy/research/postgraduateresearch/profiles/traczykowski-lauren.aspxor follow her on twitter @ltraczy. For more information on ESRU follow @ESRU_NTU