Ivor van Heerden
Dr. Ivor L. van Heerden is the Director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes at Louisiana State University. In addition, he is Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Deputy Director of the LSU Hurricane Center. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Natal in South Africa and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Marine Sciences from Louisiana State University (LSU). In 1994 Dr. van Heerden was appointed by the Governor of Louisiana to manage the state’s coastal restoration program as the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources. His appointment reflected his development of a multifaceted large-scale restoration plan for the State. In this position he was responsible for ensuring the transfer of technology and ideas from academia to state and federal agencies involved in restoration and to local government. During his tenure he gave hundreds of talks on the need to have large-scale restoration projects that mimic the natural environment. Dr. van Heerden has worked with many communities on flooding problems, and in the central part of Louisiana (Atchafalaya Basin) helped local communities organize a flood committee to be able to more strongly present their case to Congress in Washington D.C. He and his team designed the flood management plans this group eventually got funded. Subsequently, members of this team were retained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop a flood management plan for the Atchafalaya River. Dr. van Heerden also assembled a multi-campus and consulting company team to undertake a series of studies for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program. In southern Africa he has, since 1984, been involved in management of the greater St. Lucia Wetland complex, Africa’s largest estuary – a World Heritage Site. Dr. van Heerden helped found the LSU Hurricane Center and recently received a grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents, Millennium Trust Health Excellence Fund (HEF), to establish a Center for the Study of the Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes. As Director of this new Center he is the lead Principal Investigator (PI) of a five-year pilot study focusing on the greater New Orleans metropolitan area. Dr. van Heerden collaborates with sixteen PIs from the LSU Campus in Baton Rouge, LSU Health Science Center in New Orleans and University of Notre Dame. Additionally, he consults with Advisory Board members on the New Orleans public health project, including Federal Emergency Management Agency, Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness; Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities; Department of Health and Hospitals; Office of Public Health; Office of Mental Health (OMH); Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ); LSUHSC; East Baton Rouge Parish Animal Control; and New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board. He presently teaches a freshman introductory course concerning Disaster Science and Management and two graduate seminar courses. Dr van Heerden has been involved in natural disaster research projects in various parts of the world and played a key part in the dissemination of information on the impacts of Katrina during the emergency. Presently he is leading the State of Louisiana’s official forensic data gathering team as concerns the failure of the levees in New Orleans and the consequences for those who lost their homes. He is the author of "The Storm - What Went Wrong and Why during Hurricane Katrina - the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist" (with Mike Bryan) published by Penguin/Viking June 2006.