Professor Scott Gabriel Knowles
IAS Open Programme
Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST)
Scott Gabriel Knowles is a Professor in the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy at KAIST, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. He is a historian of disaster worldwide. He focuses on the historical processes that make disasters possible, and the application of history to reduce future disasters. Since March of 2020 Knowles has hosted #COVIDCalls every weekday, a live podcast discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Knowles is the author/editor of six books—including The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America (2011); Legacies of Fukushima: 3.11 in Perspective (co-edited with Kyle Cleveland and Ryuma Shineha, 2021); Worlds Fairs in the Era of the Cold War (co-edited with Art Molella, 2019); The Second Environmental Crisis (co-edited with James Kendra and Tricia Wachtendorf, 2019); Building Drexel: A University and Its City, 1891-2016 (co-edited with Richardson Dilworth, 2016); and Imagining Philadelphia: Edmund Bacon and the Future of the City (2009). He is founding co-editor of the new Journal of Disaster Studies.
During their IAS Fellowship, Professor Knowles is collaborating with Professor Ksenia Chmutina from the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering, and Professor Emily Keightley from the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.