About Me

I’m right handed. And I love Nicholas Cage movies. What else could you possibly need to know.

However, if you do want to know more: my name is Kurtis Garbutt and I am a researcher with an interest and speciality in international development, natural hazards and current affairs.

My personal interests are broad, but mostly photography, film, art, books, news and politics. My professional and academic interests are in international development, humanitarian assistance and relief, natural hazards occurrence and monitoring,  and media analysis and tracking.

I recently left a research position at the British Red Cross where I led a national floods research study aimed at enhancing the voluntary sector’s collective understanding of the needs of flood affected individuals and communities with a view to understanding how they are impacted and how recovery is best supported. The research was both qualitative and quantitative and involved in-depth interviews and questionnaire development. In addition, my other research at the British Red Cross was focused on issues as broad as climate change and extreme weather, community resilience and vulnerability, UK hazard and risk, and UK healthcare reform.

A copy of my CV can be viewed here.

Before working at the British Red Cross I undertook a research masters at the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) at Durham University, which examined the occurrence and impact of natural hazards through the examination of Internet-based news media. The research involved producing a custom-built global hazard-media database to catalogue fatal natural hazard events over the past five years and use quantitative and qualitative assessment techniques to examine the relationship between the magnitude of the event and the subsequent media coverage and ensuing humanitarian assistance.

A copy of the thesis is available here.

I run a research blog, Natural Hazards News, which features news and reports on global natural hazards, articles on international development, and information on how, why and where natural hazards occur. It is available here.

You can also read about my academic and professional work on my LinkedIn page by clicking here.

I am an avid photographer and you can peruse my photos on my Flickr photostream, available here.

I also have a photography blog that showcases some of my work, available here.

You can also follow me on Twitter. @NatHazNews is all about natural hazards in the news and links to posts on my Natural Hazard News blog and you can follow my personal Twitter account at @KJGarbutt.