Ann-Margaret Esnard

Ann-Margaret Esnard is the Associate Dean for Research and a Distinguished University Professor of Public Management and Policy. She was hired in 2013 as part of the cluster on “Shaping the Future of Cities,” during the third phase of the University’s Second Century Initiative.

Her expertise encompasses urban planning, disaster planning, vulnerability assessment, and GIS/spatial analysis. She has been involved in a number of research initiatives, including NSF funded projects on topics of population displacement from catastrophic disasters, school recovery after disasters, long-term recovery, and community resilience. She is the coauthor of the 2014 book Displaced by Disasters: Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World, co-editor of the 2017 book Coming Home after Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery, and co-author of the 2019 book Geospatial Applications for Climate Adaptation Planning.

Esnard has served on a number of state and national committees including the Disasters Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council’s committee on Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience, the State of Florida Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning initiative, and Committee for Measuring Community Resilience led by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Esnard holds degrees in Agricultural Engineering (B.Sc., University of the West Indies-Trinidad), Agronomy and Soils (M.S., University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez) and Regional Planning (Ph.D., UMASS-Amherst). She also completed a two year post-doctoral fellowship at UNC-Chapel Hill.