Marleen C. de Ruiter

NH Natural Hazards

The 2024 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Marleen C. de Ruiter for her outstanding scientific work on cascading hazards, multi-risk assessment and management.

Marleen de Ruiter is an outstanding scientist and Assistant Professor in Multi-Hazard Risk at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has a masters degree in Resource Management and Environmental Studies from the University of British Columbia, Canada and finalised her PhD in 2020 at the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Marleen is recognised for her fundamental contributions to multi-hazard risk assessments and understanding dynamics and feedbacks of risk. For instance, she provided an excellent overview of the different types of consecutive disasters, their causes, and impacts. Using existing disaster databases, she analysed the global probabilistic occurrence for different hazard types. And she proposed a framework for estimating the risk of combined floods and earthquakes in terms of average annual losses.

Her exemplary dedication to societal impact is impressive. As the co-coordinator of the MYRIAD-EU project, she is designing disaster risk pathways in practice throughout Europe. She has given invited policy-practice talks including for the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction. Another interesting contribution is her game ‘Breaking the Silos’ that supports the shift from a single-hazard mindset to a multi-risk paradigm considering various stakeholders. Her work on multi-risk has been cited in policy documents including the European Union, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Meteorological Organization.

Her service to the community is enormous. Just to name a few of her activities, she was instrumental in setting up the multi-hazard sub-division at EGU, has been EGU subdivision Science Officer for 3 years and is guest editor of Natural Hazards and Earth System Science journal and Associate Editor of Earth’s Future.

Because of this, the 2024 Natural Hazard Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is presented to Marleen de Ruiter for her outstanding scientific achievements in the field of multi-hazard risk and her commitment to practical solutions to reduce disaster risks.