Biography

Margarita graduated from the University of Concepción in April of 2010, since then she has been involved in the study of natural hazards and disasters. She participated in the research project Social Impacts of Global Climate Change in the south of Chile, sponsored by The University of Concepcion and Chilean government. During this period she worked with peasants and aboriginal communities, gathering information about how climate change affects their lives. After that, she worked in a social analysis aimed at increasing the resilience of children who experienced Concepcion’s earthquake in 2010. Later, she moved to northeast of Brazil and continued working with children, teaching them natural resource management. Currently, she is studying a master of science (geography) in the University of Melbourne. In 2013 Margarita will start an internship in Disaster Mitigation Planning Service department in the Bureau of Meteorology in the Au sstralian National Government.

Research Interest

Since July of 2012 Margarita is student of the Master of Science (Geography) at the University of Melbourne. She is learning about the physical  and  human  aspects  of  natural  hazards  and  also developing skills to become a better professional to respond to disasters. Her main research interests are focused on topics such as the level of preparedness that existed prior to the disaster (the community, country, and global responses to the disaster) and the recovery process for the impacted areas. Using a qualitative approach, she will explain people’s bushfire risk response at the local scale. Specifically, she is interested in the gendered dimensions of the decision to evacuate.