Joseph Trainor is a Staff Researcher for the Disaster Research Center and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware.

While at DRC Trainor has been involved in number of funded research projects focused on issues related primarily to the social and organizational aspects of disasters and emergency management. He was the principal network analyst in a study of multi-organizational coordination after the September 11th World Trade Center attacks; was the lead graduate researcher on a project to examine the organizational and institutional development and operation of ESF#9/USAR in the United States; and is currently involved in an analysis of FEMA employee perspective on the impacts organizational design. Trainor also has engaged in a number of field research projects as part of a reconnaissance team that traveled to India and Sri Lanka immediately following the  December, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and later as the lead field researcher for DRC’s effort to examine the social aspects of Hurricane Katrina. More recently, Joe has also been working to develop a number of disaster planning outreach services. The goal of this effort is to both provide small communities low cost assistance as they engage in the disaster planning process and to also providing emergency management students real life experience.

Trainor’s disaster related foci include: the impact of organizational design on disaster response (including NIMS); issues relate to multi-organizational coordination; disaster planning, the integration of research and practice; and the general socio-behavioral response to disasters. Additionally, Joe is particularly interested in: new technologies and research, social networks, the impacts of social capital, and the social construction of social problems.