Kathleen Tierney is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from Ohio State University and did postdoctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has held research and adjunct appointments at both UCLA and the University of Southern California, and she came to the University of Delaware from the University of California at Irvine in 1989.

With over two decades of experience in the disaster field, she has been involved in
research on many different disaster events, including earthquakes in California and
Japan, floods in the Midwest, and Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew. Since September 11, she has been directing a major study on the organizational and community response
in New York following the attack on the World Trade Center.

Her other current and recent research projects include studies on public perceptions of the earthquake threat in the Northern California Bay Area, the implementation of FEMA's Project Impact in communities around the US, real-time warning systems for
earthquakes, and the business impacts of disasters. Tierney is the author of dozens of  articles, book chapters, and technical reports on the social aspects of hazards,
disasters, and risk, including articles in The International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, The Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Sociological Spectrum, Sociological Forum, Natural Hazards Review, and Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. Her publications also include Disasters, Collective Behavior, and Social Organization (1994), co-edited with Russell Dynes, and Facing the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness and Response in the United States (2001), co-authored with Michael K. Lindell and Ronald W. Perry. She is a member of the editorial boards of Natural Hazards Review and Sociological Inquiry.