Chelsea Schneider – 2009

Chelsea Schneider was born and raised on Maui. Following graduation from H.P. Baldwin High School in 2005, she attended California Lutheran University where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Philosophy in May 2009.

Chelsea is an avid traveler. Her travels have led her to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Costa Rica, Mexico and throughout the United States where she has competed in an international Ki-Aikido competition, skydived, bungee jumped, rappelled, zip-lined and ATVed. All of her travels have helped her to appreciate the beauty of our island home and have inspired her to protect and preserve the environment.

Institution when accepted: recent graduate of California Lutheran University

Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on the Magnitudes of International Disasters Project Site: Pacific Disaster Center Mentor: Pam Cowher

Project Abstract: One of the fundamental capabilities of the Pacific Disaster Center is the use of historical disaster data to better assess disaster risks and impacts. The goal of this project is to analyze whether the degree of distress inflicted on the surrounding population is based on certain socioeconomic factors of the affected country, i.e. gross domestic product, access to healthcare, and literacy rates. An essential element of this project was the utilization of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which allowed the geospatial presentation of affected locations in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). With ArcGIS software, geographic identifiers were assigned to the centroids of the location of a disaster so that the distribution of events could be evident. Altogether, there were 6125 geographic identifiers that were plotted in 44 different countries. The final product of this project will be added as a map layer in the Pacific Disaster Center’s Hazards and Vulnerability Atlas.