Dr Nicola Ranger works as a specialist on crisis and disaster risk financing for the World Bank. Her research is on climate and disaster risk management, with a focus on multi-hazard risk assessment and how to make decisions under uncertainty, including forecast-based early action, insurance and climate-resilient development.

Background

Nicola formerly worked as a senior adviser for the UK Department for International Development, focused on policy, analysis and delivering aid programmes on disaster and climate resilience, with a focus on early warning systems, risk financing and early humanitarian action.

Prior to this, Nicola was a Senior Research Fellow and Head of Adaptation and Development at the Grantham Research Institute, LSE.

Nicola joined LSE in March 2009 from the insurance catastrophe modelling firm, Risk Management Solutions Ltd (RMS), where she was a Senior Research Analyst on climate change and disaster risk. Previous to this, she held positions as a scientific advisor at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and as a Policy Analyst for HM Treasury, where she was part of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and later worked on international climate policy.

Nicola holds a PhD in Atmospheric Physics from Imperial College London and a first-class honours degree in Physics from the University of Warwick.

Research interests

• Crisis and Disaster Risk Financing
• Climate-resilient development
• Multi-hazard risk assessment
• Decision making under uncertainty
• Risk communication and behaviour