Gina Yannitell Reinhardt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, where she leads the ARISE Initiative to help local authorities evaluate resilience-building programmes and their impact, and researches resilience, foreign aid, climate change and environmental policy, and political trust.

Lex Drennan is an adjunct research fellow at the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, where she carries out research in the field of disaster resilience, government policy, and disaster management.