From AI to Zoonoses

The Science and Practice of Catastrophic Risk Management

Welcome to the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management’s (CCRM) new substack—From AI to Zoonoses—where we ponder the science and practice of managing risk.

CCRM is an interdisciplinary community of scholars and practitioners from the University of California, Berkeley and beyond who think a lot—you might say obsess—about risk. No, we’re not adrenaline junkies. We’re the folks who lie awake at night thinking about how to keep other people safe.

Catastrophic risk management is a big topic. Synonyms include “crisis management,” “disaster risk reduction,” “safety science” and “reliability engineering.” And there are many different types of risks: from cyberattacks to floods, industrial accidents and wildfires. So CCRM covers a lot of ground.

But there are some fundamental concerns that risk management scholars and practitioners share: How do risks “incubate”? How can we prevent, prepare for and mitigate them before they materialize? And how can we promote effective response and recovery when those risks can’t be prevented?

We use this platform to reflect on the science and practice of catastrophic risk management and to let people know what CCRM is up to. Stay tuned for our first installment: Crying Wolf? The Challenge of False Alarms in Flood Early Warning Systems.