New Perspectives on the Societal Risks of AI

July 7, 2026
by Nick Fetty

Blog

AI safety, once a niche concern, is now a topic that most people have heard of, but many remain unaware of what can be done to safeguard against these new threats.

The New York Academy of Sciences along with the International Science Reserve hosted a free webinar on June 30, 2026, to explore both the technical and societal challenges around AI.

On the technical side, issues such as robustness, alignment, interpretability, and controllability raise fundamental questions about how we design systems that behave as intended. Societally, concerns around misuse, systemic bias, economic disruption, and governance highlight the broader implications of deploying AI at scale. From technical design choices that can have far-reaching social consequences to policy decisions that can shape the trajectory of technical development, these two dimensions are deeply interconnected, as explored during the webinar.

The event was moderated by Nick Dirks, President and CEO of the Academy, and included three expert speakers:

Andrew Draganov, Arcadia Impact, Research Lead and Program Manager for Alignment Research
Sarah Kreps, Cornell University, John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government, Adjunct Professor of Law, and the Director of Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy
Robert Slone, PhD, UL Solutions, Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist

Slow Moving, Diffuse Challenges

Prof. Dirks starts the conversation by emphasizing that their discussion wouldn’t just be focused on speculation and would instead look at “moving from the recognition of risk to the readiness to respond.” He points out that each member of the expert panel approaches “the problem from distinctive but quite complimentary vantages.”

“One of the key premises we’re here to test is that many of the most consequential risks are not dramatic rogue AI scenarios, but slower moving, diffuse challenges,” Prof. Dirks says.

For Dr. Slone, the regulation of AI is directly relevant to the work UL Solutions has been doing for more than 130 years on market safety for products and technologies.

“What keeps me up at night, honestly, is us,” Dr. Slone says. “It’s how humans are interacting with AI and this notion of gradual degradation of critical thought. Of using AI as an ‘easy button,’ accepting the output without questioning where it came from.”

Dr. Slone explains that AI-enabled technologies undergo engineering inspections and testing similar to other products, adding that issues around transparency and accountability are what separates AI from more traditional products.

“The one thing that’s been encouraging along the way is to see the brands we’ve worked with for decades, sometimes over a century, they clearly want to bring safe products to the market,” he says.

National Security and Ethical Concerns

Prof. Kreps, whose work falls at the intersection of national security and emerging technology, expresses some concerns around uncertainty in AI.

“There is always this window, when these technologies emerge, of uncertainty. And I think we’re in that window of uncertainty now with AI where there are just so many kinds of speculative risks. We don’t have a clear risk distribution,” she says, adding that uncertainty around AI differs from other technologies that impact national security like nuclear weapons, cyber threats, and propaganda via social media

“What’s different about AI is that it’s coming out of civilian firms, and now there are these enormous national security impacts,” Prof. Krep continues. “The dilemma is I think there are risks of intervening too aggressively if you’re a public institution like the government, and the risk of not intervening [at all].”

Much of Dr. Draganov’s work examines the alignment problem with AI, which explores AI’s ability to perform ethically.

“The thing that keeps me up at night is the pace of change because it seems more and more at least from my research, we can hand off significant portions to AI models and we don’t even have the state-of-the-art ones,” he says. “This recursive self-improvement cycle is fairly unprecedented, at least in the way it’s currently occurring, so this is very difficult to map out all the ways it can go.”

Disentangling Hype from Reality

In terms of addressing the short-term challenges around AI and national security, Prof. Kreps acknowledges it can be difficult to “disentangle the CEO-driven hype from the reality.”

“What I find very interesting about the AI space compared to social media is that it seemed like Sam Altman [of OpenAI] and Dario [Amodei of Anthropic] were very keen to get out ahead of these risks, contrary to the Facebook-Meta model where everything was reactive,” Prof. Kreps says.

Prof. Kreps worked with OpenAI in 2018 to explore the national security impacts of GPT-2.0 and GPT-3.0 in an electoral setting, prior to the public release of these models. While the Biden Administration was receptive to placing boundaries around these models, the Trump Administration reversed course with more of a “light touch approach to regulation.” Prof. Kreps feels that there is currently a tension within the government about where to flex its regulatory muscle, despite being ideologically predisposed to a more hands-off approach.

“[There’s] a realization these models are very capable whether that’s for biological hazards or cyber security, some of the ways in which these models can find vulnerabilities is truly eye-opening,” Prof. Kreps says. “I think there is a realization, objectively speaking, [that] it’s incumbent upon the government to be taking some of those risks seriously.”

Prof. Dirks adds that the situation is further complicated when a company or product reaches the IPO (initial public offerings) stage, meaning it would be subject to certain governmental regulations that may have not been relevant pre-IPO.

The Centaur Effect

Dr. Draganov said AI systems are in a precarious situation that we often do not know how or what they think, yet they are increasingly expected to make sound decisions for users in digital environments. AI agents are being tasked with everything from coding to developing data sets to training, even though historically these kinds of tasks have been performed by humans. This has led to what’s been called “the Centaur Effect.”

“[This means] the person plus the model is more capable than just the person,” explains Dr. Draganov. “But the thing we’re finding is that with each coming six-month increment, the number of things we can hand off, at least on a technical domain, is growing.”

With the AI models doing more of the work in this regard, it contributes to the problems around uncertainty that Prof. Kreps addressed. This can create issues for the user who may struggle to understand if the AI is maliciously undermining a prompt or if it’s earnestly trying to improve decision-making because of well-meaning ignorance on the part of the user issuing the prompt.

A Lack of Agreement Globally

Dr. Slone points out that there does appear to be global agreement on certain elements of AI development such as data and privacy as well as fairness and bias. This is the “easier part,” he says. The difficult part, which echoes Dr. Draganov’s sentiment, is “the dynamism.”

“What get certified on day one, could be updated on day three, and be completely different,” says Dr. Slone. “So unless we have access to lifetime data from those manufacturers, as to what updates they’ve sent through, you could have an outdated certification within 24 hours or less.”

Dr. Slone adds that this is the dynamism that is yet unresolved. Another complexity, according to Dr. Slone, is that legally there aren’t currently many requirements around AI development. For example, he says the European Union (EU) would be placing itself at an economic disadvantage if it enforced greater regulation on its tech companies compared to the United States or China.

“It’s that dynamic, changing piece of this that I think is the biggest challenge remaining that we do need to solve at some point soon,” says Dr. Slone.

China and Economic Competitiveness

While Democrats and Republicans are often at odds with one another, Prof. Kreps pointed out they do share some commonalities around China. In recent years presidents from both parties have implemented “export controls” around chip manufacturing to prevent the Chinese from gaining an economic advantage in the AI race.

“This idea of quote ‘keeping as large of a lead as possible’ is futile. It’s like shoveling water with a pitchfork,” says Prof. Kreps. “The idea that we can somehow deny China or that there’s any value in being four months ahead just seems silly to me.”

Discussions around the regulation of AI are like the work Prof. Kreps has done around nuclear nonproliferation. Leaders from countries may be skeptical to foreswear unilateral agreements if they feel it will put them at a competitive disadvantage.

“I think these [AI models] are much harder to regulate and verify compliance with than a nuclear weapon,” she says.

Dr. Slone sees an overreliance on AI in the United States as being a potential impediment to educational competitiveness.

“If we use AI as an ‘easy button’ we’re not raising our games. We’re lowering our own standards, our own bars, our own behaviors. And not applying critical thought,” Dr. Slone says.

He points to various universities and other institutions conducting research around learning outcomes and AI use. Nudges from behavioral economics can be helpful in fighting the degradation of critical thinking skills. For Dr. Slone, the return of “Blue Books” in the classroom is not a bad thing.

“I think some of those simple, basic, fundamentally-sound approaches to education, to training, to development, and to performing our work are actually really important right now,” he says.

Secrecy versus Oversight and the Role of Higher Education in AI Safety

The discussion concluded with a question-and-answer session from attendees. This included pondering issues around the balance between national security secrecy and oversight as well as the role higher education and research can play in alleviating safety concerns posed by lawmakers.

Prof. Dirks concluded the webinar by circling back to the mission of the International Science Reserve, which embraces the mantra of “scientists without borders.” A similar, egalitarian approach can be applied to the development and regulation of AI.

“I think we can all see the need to have institutions like this that bring scientists together to think about these major societal risks,” says Prof. Dirks. “To work to identify how to prepare for them but also to recognize and begin to operationalize the global network that we’re going to need from scientists, technologist, and others in continuing to bring science to bear on these kinds of issues. And also to keep science aligned with what we see as the public good.”

Special thanks to the partners for this event: FedEx, Google, IBM, Pfizer, and UL Solutions.

What “Mystery Outbreaks” Teach Us About Public Health

June 29, 2026
by Syra Madad

Blog

Doctor giving vaccine booster dose to woman patient wearing protective face mask.

When a deadly outbreak begins with an unknown cause, uncertainty can spread almost as quickly as disease.

That uncertainty is now painfully familiar: in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an Ebola outbreak caused by Bundibugyo virus was declared in May 2026 after WHO was first alerted to a high-mortality “unknown illness” in Ituri Province. By mid-June, WHO reported over a thousand confirmed cases, deaths across multiple provinces, and a response complicated by delayed detection, insecurity, and diagnostic challenges.

The lesson is not simply that we need faster tests. It is that tests are only one part of outbreak intelligence. False negatives happen. Incidental positives can distract. Familiar diseases can mask unusual patterns. And sometimes, even after extensive investigation, the exact cause is never fully resolved. Yet public health action cannot wait for perfect certainty.

To better understand how public health experts investigate outbreaks of unknown cause and how the world should talk about them, I spoke with Freya Jephcott, PhD, a medical anthropologist and field epidemiologist specializing in emerging infectious disease surveillance and response systems. Dr. Jephcott is a Senior Researcher with the Centre for Pandemic Risk Management at the University of Cambridge and a Senior Lecturer in the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney. She also leads the Outbreak Ethnographies Project and has supported outbreak investigation and policy work for the World Health Organization and Médecins Sans Frontières.

For readers who are new to this topic, what is a “mystery outbreak,” and why do outbreaks of unknown cause draw so much attention from public health experts?

When people say “mystery outbreak,” they’re usually referring to what we call an outbreak of unknown aetiology. This is where we know some kind of public health event is occurring, but we don’t know what agent, or combination of agents, is causing it. It could be a virus, bacteria, fungi, parasite, prion, toxic agent, or even a nutritional crisis, radio-nuclear event, or some kind of psychogenic phenomenon. We just don’t know or can’t quite be sure.

Most of the attention they garner is probably borne from fears that they represent an outbreak of a novel or unfamiliar pathogen with pandemic potential. There are other reasons they attract attention, though. Not knowing the causative agent can make it harder to contain an outbreak and treat individual cases effectively. They are also just really interesting, and as such, pique the curiosity and imagination of public health professionals and laypeople alike.

You recently spoke about an undiagnosed illness in northern Burundi that reportedly sickened 35 people and led to five deaths. When an outbreak presents with severe symptoms but the cause remains unknown, how should public health officials and journalists communicate risk without causing unnecessary alarm or offering false reassurance?

It’s important that public health officials and journalists properly contextualize these situations when speaking about them publicly.

Most outbreaks of unknown etiology turn out to be caused by common or familiar pathogens, which happen to be presenting or behaving in an unusual way or were not detected during initial testing. This is especially true of those occurring in poorer, lower-latitude settings like Burundi, where there is a large existing burden of infectious diseases and limited resources available for investigation.

Regardless of whether it’s a familiar pathogen or something novel, most of these outbreaks will be self-limiting, naturally constrained by some ecological-cum-economic niche, or containable using generic public health interventions, such as increased hygiene measures and quarantine.

A lot of attention around mystery outbreaks is driven by fear of a novel, pandemic-prone pathogen. You’ve said one of the best ways to detect the signal of something new is to reduce the noise of endemic diseases such as malaria, shigella, and dengue. Why is that so important?

High burdens of endemic infectious diseases create a lot of “noise” when performing disease surveillance, making it hard to discern the “signal” of something unusual.

Part of the problem is that infectious diseases often present in very similar ways. A person with Ebola may have identical, or at least very similar, symptoms to someone with typhoid fever, shigella, or dengue. All of these conditions initially present with fever, malaise, and loss of appetite, and can cause hemorrhagic manifestations later in illness. Even toxic agents can have clinical overlap with them. During the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, surveillance systems in a few countries picked up clusters of heavy metal poisoning cases in mining communities.

It can take quite a few cases for the more distinct patterns of symptoms and mortality associated with specific pathogens to become apparent. As rapid containment is so important when dealing with potential epidemics and pandemics, anything that causes a delay in detection is a significant problem.

Much of pandemic preparedness focuses on cutting-edge surveillance, novel diagnostics, and rapid pathogen detection. You make a case for “bread and butter public health.” What does that look like on the ground?

“Bread and butter” public health looks like adequate housing, ready access to soap and clean water, food security, educational opportunities, and well-stocked and staffed local healthcare facilities with feasible pathways to more advanced tertiary facilities. Essentially, all of the things we already know to be effective against an array of health concerns and feasible across a range of settings.

It also looks like adequately resourced and responsive local public health infrastructure. The presence of district disease control officers, or an equivalent local health official with epidemiological training, is a big one for me. They are the public health officials at the community interface who can identify, flag, and, to varying degrees, contain public health crises as they emerge.

For basic public health to prevail, though, communities need to be able to advocate for themselves and, to some degree, negotiate the conditions of their existence. The impact of political marginalization on the spread of disease, whilst widely understood in public health, often gets forgotten in the discourse around pandemic prevention.

You describe basic public health measures as a “two-for-one”: they reduce today’s endemic diseases and may also slow the spread of tomorrow’s novel threats. What are some practical examples?

Other than our degree of familiarity with them, novel and endemic pathogenic threats are drawn from the same pool. It seems extremely unlikely that a pathogen is going to suddenly present with some previously unknown route of transmission, meaning our generic infectious disease controls are likely to be effective.

For example, before we knew HIV was the virus responsible for AIDS, we knew that condoms were effective at preventing transmission and slowing the spread of the disease. And generic public health tools like masks, soap, and ventilation or air purification systems, which we routinely deploy against common infectious agents, will likely be effective against that much anticipated and feared novel influenza pandemic.

On a more fundamental level, a pathogen that finds itself in a disenfranchised, malnourished human population, residing in overcrowded housing with little hygiene infrastructure, and already saddled with a high burden of infectious diseases, is going to spread quickly and easily and be far harder to contain. The presence, or absence, of a functioning public health system will largely determine whether an outbreak peters out after a few cases or gains traction and realizes its epidemic potential.

When investigators are trying to understand an outbreak of unknown cause, what does the practical detective work involve?

The most pressing question when investigating an outbreak of unknown etiology is: “How are people contracting this illness?” This could mean identifying a particular source of infection or exposure — a contaminated well or doctored batch of pharmaceutical products, for example — or determining the primary routes of transmission, such as inhalation of aerosols or an insect vector. If we can get some clue as to how people are contracting the illness, we can intervene and curtail the outbreak.

There are a few ways outbreak investigators do this. The main way involves compiling information about individual cases into a file called a “line list.” This is then used to perform epidemiological analyses, including producing epidemic curves. The shape of an epidemic curve can tell you a lot about the nature and spread of an outbreak, including whether it is likely infectious, how long the typical incubation period is, and how many new cases each case typically seeds.

Investigators can also perform cohort and case-control studies, which can highlight important correlations and risk factors. They also conduct environmental investigations, though these are often underutilized in contemporary outbreak investigations.

Laboratory and field testing play an important role too. Knowing the specific agent responsible, or even just excluding some that aren’t responsible, is helpful. But it is not always necessary, and it doesn’t always provide the crucial information about how the disease is actually spreading.

What do recent outbreaks of unknown cause teach us about testing?

Testing is indispensable, but it is not infallible. In a 2018 review of 10 recent investigations into outbreaks of unknown etiology for WHO, several recurring issues stood out.

False negatives are more common than many people realize. They can result from the timing of sample collection, cold chain failures, user error, or a test that is not designed for the pathogen actually causing the outbreak. In the current DRC Ebola outbreak, early diagnostic challenges appear to have reflected, in part, the difficulty of detecting Bundibugyo virus with tools better suited to other Ebola species. CDC has noted that the current outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus in DRC and Uganda, while WHO has described the outbreak’s initial presentation as a high-mortality unknown illness before laboratory confirmation.

Incidental positives are also common. In many outbreak investigations, laboratory results may identify multiple agents that plausibly fit the clinical picture. A few malaria-positive tests during a febrile illness outbreak in a malaria-endemic area, for example, should not be enough to declare the outbreak solved.

Investigators also have more testing strategies available than they may initially use. Targeted testing matters, but non-specific or broader approaches — including multiplex PCRs and metagenomic sequencing — can be valuable when the clinical picture is unclear.

And sometimes the causative agent is never identified. That cannot become an excuse for inaction. A rough understanding of the source or route of transmission is often enough to begin effective interventions: contact tracing, PPE, safer care practices, water and sanitation measures, or community-based risk reduction.

Many mystery outbreaks occur in places already carrying a high burden of familiar infectious diseases, while also drawing global attention because of pandemic concerns. How can the global health community avoid treating lower-income countries mainly as early-warning systems for the rest of the world?

It seems perverse to justify reducing the burden of diarrheal diseases in places like Burundi solely, or even primarily, on the grounds that it would help protect some far-off, wealthier foreign population against a hypothetical future pandemic. That it is one of the largest killers of children under five should be motivation enough.

Discourse around epidemic- and pandemic-prone diseases seems to be almost exclusively caged in the terms of global catastrophic risks and the protection of “Northern” interests. The discussions of equity and rights that have started to gain traction in global health more broadly assumedly coming off the back of more serious engagement with questions of epistemic justice do not seem to have found much cachet in this securitization-obsessed environment. So the idea that appeals to compassion and solidarity might somehow be compelling to this audience seems quixotic.

But I think that’s wrong. I think public health professionals, including myself, should give such motivations prominence in our justifications for tackling infectious disease burdens in these settings. I think we might find that such notions do have traction within the wider epistemic community, and amongst pandemic-prevention policymakers and the general public.

Closing

Mystery outbreaks test more than laboratory capacity. They test humility, communication, trust, and the strength of everyday public health systems. The goal is not only to name the pathogen faster, though that matters. It is to act wisely amid uncertainty, reduce the conditions that allow outbreaks to flourish, and remember that the communities most affected are not merely sentinels for the rest of the world. They are people deserving safety, care, and sustained investment now.

Read more from Dr. Madad.

Ebola’s Warning Shot: The Bundibugyo Outbreak Is Moving Faster Than the World’s Response

June 10, 2026
by Syra Madad

Blog

This transmission electron microscopic (TEM) image revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus virion. Image courtesy of Dr. Frederick Murphy via CDC.

Here are 6 Updates

The current Ebola outbreak in Central Africa is not another distant public health headline. It is a test of whether the world has learned the lessons of 2014–2016: act early, fund the basics, protect health workers, and move science fast enough to matter.

This outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus disease, a form of Ebola for which there is still no licensed vaccine or approved treatment. The newest DRC public health update reports 550 cumulative confirmed cases, 101 deaths among confirmed cases, 309 patients in isolation or hospitalization, and 19 cumulative recoveries, yielding an overall case-fatality rate of 18.4%. The numbers are moving quickly, and they likely underestimate the true toll because some earlier deaths remain under investigation.

The geography should worry us.

The epicenter remains Ituri Province in northeastern DRC, but cases have spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, with Uganda reporting imported and linked secondary cases in Kampala and Wakiso. This is not only a rural outbreak. It is unfolding along corridors of insecurity, mining-linked mobility, cross-border care-seeking and fragile health systems, the exact conditions that allow Ebola to outrun paper plans.

Contact tracing is improving but remains below the threshold needed for control.

The latest DRC update reports a 64.4% contact follow-up rate across the three affectedprovinces. That is progress, but not enough and follow-up rates vary sharply by province and health zone, with insecurity and mistrust limiting access. In Ebola response, every missed contact is not a clerical failure, it is a possible transmission chain.

Health care workers are again among the first to pay the price.

WHO reported 16 confirmed infections among health and care workers in DRC as of June 6, while earlier situation reporting from Uganda documented health worker infections linked to imported cases and secondary transmission. This is a flashing red light. When clinicians, cleaners, lab staff, and burial teams are not safe, patients delay care, facilities become amplifiers, and communities lose trust.

Recently, when I was honored with a public health service award for my work in outbreak preparedness and response, I dedicated that recognition to the health care workers serving on the front lines of the Ebola response in DRC and Uganda. They are the real heroes, showing up, often at great personal risk, to care for patients, protect communities, and stop this outbreak at its source.

There is also a survivor story that should shape the public narrative.

The DRC update now reports 19 cumulative recoveries. An American doctor infected while working in DRC recovered and was discharged from a Berlin hospital. Survivors remind us that Ebola is not inevitably fatal but survival depends on rapid recognition, isolation, optimized supportive care, safe staffing, and trust in the response.

Vaccines are the great hope, but not the immediate rescue.

WHO’s expert groups have advised that candidate vaccines and therapeutics for Bundibugyo virus be used within clinical trials. The leading vaccine candidates include IAVI’s single-dose rVSV Bundibugyo vaccine, Oxford/Serum Institute’s ChAdOx1 Bundibugyo vaccine, and Moderna’s mRNA approach. WHO noted that IAVI’s candidate may need seven to nine months before trial readiness, while ChAdOx1 could potentially be available sooner for efficacy assessment if supporting data are sufficient.

CDC’s modeling is the starkest warning.

If only 20% of symptomatic patients are isolated, CDC projected a 65% chance of exceeding 20,000 cases within three months under one scenario. If 70% are isolated, the risk of surpassing 10,000 cases drops dramatically. Models are not prophecies, they are decision tools. This one says the same thing Ebola has always said: speed saves lives.

The world does not need to wait for a vaccine to act. The tools we have now, surveillance, testing, contact tracing, isolation, infection prevention, safe burials, survivor care, and community partnership, are old, imperfect, and indispensable. The question is not whether we know what to do. The question is whether we will do it at the scale, speed, political will, and humility this outbreak demands.

Read more from Dr. Madad.

8 Things to Know About the Ebola Outbreak Now Spreading in DRC and Uganda

May 20, 2026
by Syra Madad

Blog

Digitally-colorized, transmission electron microscopic image which demonstrates the filamentous, branching structure of an Ebola virus particle.

Image courtesy of CDC.

A concerning Ebola outbreak is unfolding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with associated cases in Uganda.

For the general public in the United States, the risk currently remains low. There are no reported cases in the United States tied to this outbreak, and Ebola does not spread through the air like measles or COVID-19. It spreads through direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is sick with or has died from Ebola disease.

But “low risk here” should never be mistaken for “low concern.” Having supported Ebola response efforts during the 2014–2016 outbreak and related U.S. domestic preparedness and response activities, I know that clear, accurate communication is essential. This outbreak has several features that deserve close attention from public health leaders, healthcare systems, travelers, and policymakers.

1. This is not the Ebola strain most people know.

The current outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus, a species of Ebola virus that has caused only a small number of known outbreaks. This matters because the tools we often associate with Ebola response are not all interchangeable. The U.S.-licensed Ebola vaccine, ERVEBO, is indicated for prevention of Ebola disease caused by Zaire ebolavirus, not Bundibugyo virus. There are currently no FDA-licensed or authorized vaccine and no FDA-approved or authorized treatment specifically for Bundibugyo virus disease.

2. The outbreak appears to have been detected late.

CDC’s May 19 Health Alert Network advisory reported that, as of May 16, DRC had 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths, with Bundibugyo virus infection confirmed in samples from clusters in Ituri Province. Uganda has also reported associated cases linked to travel from DRC, including cases identified in Kampala; one patient reportedly died while receiving care. More recent reporting from May 19 described more than 500 suspected cases and more than 130 suspected deaths, underscoring how quickly the situation is evolving. Late detection means public health teams are not starting at the beginning of a transmission chain. Instead, they are trying to reconstruct weeks of exposures, missed diagnoses, unsafe burials, healthcare contacts, cross-border movement, and community spread after the fact. That makes contact tracing harder, isolation more difficult, and containment more urgent.

3. Healthcare worker infections are a flashing red warning light.

Ebola is often called a disease of caregiving because the highest-risk exposures frequently occur among those providing hands-on care: family members, burial workers, and healthcare personnel. CDC notes that healthcare providers and family members caring for someone with Ebola disease without proper infection control are among those at highest risk. Reports of healthcare worker deaths or infections are especially concerning because they can signal gaps in infection prevention, delayed recognition, inadequate PPE, overwhelmed facilities, or all of the above. When healthcare workers become infected, health systems lose trusted responders at the very moment they are most needed.

4. The location makes containment much harder.

The outbreak is centered in northeastern DRC, including Ituri Province, an area affected by insecurity, population displacement, mining-related movement, and frequent cross-border travel. CDC specifically identifies these factors as conditions that may increase the risk of further transmission. This is not just a virology problem, it is a logistics, trust, conflict, and mobility problem. Public health response depends on safe access to communities, reliable laboratory testing, rapid isolation, contact tracing, and community cooperation. Each of those becomes harder in a setting marked by insecurity and displacement.

5. A PHEIC is a global alarm bell, not a reason to panic.

WHO declared this outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on May 17, 2026. WHO defines a PHEIC as an extraordinary event that poses a public health risk to other countries through international spread and may require a coordinated international response. In plain language: a PHEIC is a call to mobilize money, personnel, supplies, surveillance, laboratory capacity, and cross-border coordination.

6. The Title 42 order is extraordinary and should be understood carefully.

According to the outbreak information shared, the U.S. federal response includes enhanced travel screening, entry restrictions, and a Title 42 order beginning May 18: a 30-day restriction on entry for foreign travelers who have been in DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan in the prior 21 days, with exemptions for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. That is a major federal action. Travel restrictions may reduce some travel volume and buy time, but they are not a substitute for outbreak control at the source. They can also create unintended consequences, including stigma, disincentives to disclose travel history, and disruption of response logistics. The core work remains surveillance, testing, isolation, infection prevention, safe burials, community engagement, and support for affected countries.

7. The World Cup changes the preparedness conversation.

The U.S., Canada, and Mexico are hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup from June 11 to July 19, and the New York/New Jersey region will host eight matches, including the final on July 19. Ebola is not easy to transmit in casual public settings and the current risk to U.S. residents remains low. But mass gatherings bring large volumes of international travel, crowded venues, and heightened demands on emergency departments, urgent care, public health hotlines, and airport screening systems. The lesson is not to alarm fans, it is to ensure frontline healthcare and public health systems are ready to ask the right travel questions, identify compatible symptoms, isolate quickly, and inform public health authorities without delay.

8. The public health message must be precise: low U.S. risk, high global stakes.

For the U.S. public, the practical takeaway is straightforward: risk remains very low unless someone has recently been in an affected area or had direct contact with a symptomatic or deceased person with Ebola disease. Ebola is not airborne, and people are not considered contagious before symptoms appear. For healthcare systems, the message is equally clear: travel screening matters, PPE training matters, and “identify, isolate, inform” remains the backbone of preparedness.

This is an evolving story. Updates may be added as the World Health Organization (WHO) releases more information.

Read more from Dr. Madad.

Before Hazards Become Disasters with Blavatnik Award Winner Dr. Elaina J. Sutley

November 21, 2025
by ISR Staff

Blog

Dr. Elaina J. Sutley is an Associate Dean for Impact and Belonging, and an Associate Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the University of Kansas, USA.

In 2025, Dr. Sutley won the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists for her groundbreaking work on comprehensive, systematic computer modeling and engineering to address disaster mitigation and recovery. Her work informs building codes and disaster readiness policies across the United States.

Dr. Sutley recently spoke with the International Science Reserve about her research.

Congratulations on the Blavatnik Award! Can you share how this will help you advance your research on designing disaster prevention strategies?

Thank you! I am so honored to receive this award, and particularly grateful for the attention and recognition it will give to natural hazards and disaster research. The award opens up a new network that I’m eager to build connections with and explore new ways to help communities prevent hazards from becoming disasters.

As an engineer, you approach your research through an interdisciplinary lens, examining not only how we design buildings, but also the social implications of disasters like floods and wildfires in communities over time. What makes this approach more effective, in your opinion?

I’m so grateful that during my PhD, I was co-trained in sociology which helps place people at the heart of what I do as an engineer. Placing people front and center has driven my research in directions that can result in a huge impact. For example, because we were focused on the disparate long-term experiences of people after disasters, we were able to highlight an otherwise invisible outcome of child homelessness. We developed a model that estimates child homelessness after disasters and even mapped these to school districts. The model is incorporated into a decision-making tool used by real communities in the U.S. so when these decision-makers are determining whether or not to invest in a mitigation strategy, they can see this long-term human impact that could be reduced or even prevented by the investment.

Additionally, I’ve built a fairly significant body of work focused on improving the performance of manufactured homes during disasters. While there is much more work left to do here, I was able to successfully change FEMA’s Direct Housing Guide so that now disaster victims can still receive these otherwise rapidly distributable homes, but in a safer way. This type of structure is particularly important because, as the most common type of unsubsidized affordable housing in the US, it provides critical shelter to an often-overlooked segment of the population. Working from an exclusively engineering lens, these are non-engineered structures and may be considered outside of a structural engineer’s scope of work. But because of who lives in them, they became a critical focus for my research group.

By studying the impact of tornadoes on manufactured housing or other structurally weak building designs, you are baking equity into your research approach. What experiences made this important to you?

There are perhaps two seminal experiences I’ll point to. The first is when I was a graduate student at the University of Alabama when a superstorm of tornadoes came through creating devastation across the city in 2011. The damage was disparate, and so was the recovery process. It was the first time I came to understand how differential access could really change a person’s quality of life.
Then in 2015, I had the wonderful opportunity to be part of the NIST-funded Center for Risk Based Community Resilience Planning. This 10-year project included a longitudinal field study in Lumberton, North Carolina, which I led starting in 2016. Our team went to Lumberton 9 times to collect data on damage and impact, decision-making, rebuilding and recovery over the course of 7 years. We surveyed the same households repeatedly through this process to document their experiences. It was a profound experience for me that truly highlighted the immediate and long-term inequities of disasters and further enhanced my commitment to center people and equity in my research.

What advice do you have for other young scientists or engineers who want to translate their research into policy? For example, do you have tips for working with government and policymakers on disaster or crisis prevention?

Do it! We need more scientists and engineers communicating and translating their work into policy and practice.

I’ll share two tips. First and with most new relationships, I find it is always important to listen first. When you are working with government and policymakers, or even building codes – there is a process, there is a procedure, and there are constraints. Figure those out. Be known as someone who will listen and learn and then work within the system. Second, channel your inner resilient optimist. Look for reasons something can work – not for reasons it won’t. Look for solutions and paths forward, and don’t give up. This positive energy will rub off on others, and they’ll be more willing to help you figure it out and connect you with the people they know, and it’ll give you some ideas for how to accomplish your goals by illuminating the path forward.

Given the ISR is a global network, are you working with researchers across borders – and why is that valuable?

Absolutely! And there is so much we can learn from working across borders. In the past, I’ve worked on a project that was focused on the seismic hazard in Nepal. Presently, I am collaborating with researchers based in Canada and Indonesia on retreating from risk through strategic retreat / community relocation mechanisms. There are socio-political, technological, and hazard-specific reasons that make it where not everything we do is applicable everywhere. But in general, the problems we face are not exclusive, and there are brilliant and dedicated people around the world that we can learn from and that we can share our insights with so that together, we can all reach higher levels of innovation that support the betterment of society.

Building Resilient Partnerships and Policies to Strengthen Climate Preparedness

October 14, 2025
by ISR Staff

Blog

International Science Reserve member Aden Ahmed Hassen is a passionate advocate for the environment and a firm believer in the urgent need to address climate change. He currently serves as the climate change and environmental safeguards director at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) in Somaliland in the Horn of Africa.

Aden recently spoke to the International Science Reserve about his work.

What drove you to work on climate change and the environment?

My journey into climate change work is deeply personal. Growing up in Somaliland, I saw how recurring droughts can devastate communities — livestock died, farms failed, and families in towns like Saylac and Lughaya (Awdal) were forced to leave their homes. These experiences made it clear that climate change is a daily reality, affecting whether people can eat, work, and live with dignity.

What are some of the biggest challenges for Somaliland and surrounding regions when it comes to climate change?

Somaliland is in the Horn of Africa, and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the east. The region is facing several impacts related to climate change and human activity, including drought and water security, land degradation and deforestation, and food insecurity and displacement.

In recent years, we have seen increasingly erratic rains and frequent droughts that cause livestock deaths, crop failures, and drinking water shortages. We are also experiencing more soil erosion, desertification, and biodiversity loss from overgrazing, charcoal production, and poor land use.

Finally, climate shocks have undermined pastoral and farming livelihoods, which in turn, can lead to hunger, migration, and increased social tensions.

How can scientists and researchers work more with the government to help prepare the public for disasters?

I believe in the practice of co-producing and sharing knowledge. Climate researchers at universities and regional climate centers can simplify rainfall and drought forecasts by translating them into local languages. In Somaliland, for example, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MoECC) and Ministry of Education can communicate this knowledge through schools, radio, and community meetings, so pastoralists and farmers understand risks and options.

We also need to build joint early warning and response systems to save lives and communities in disaster. For example, by strengthening collaboration between the Somaliland Meteorological Department, MoECC, and disaster agencies (like The Somaliland National Disaster Preparedness and Food Reserve Authority, or NADFOR) to deliver real-time drought and flood alerts via SMS, radio, and community leaders. Scientists provide the technical forecasts, and the government ensures communities receive them in actionable ways (e.g., moving livestock, storing fodder, harvesting rainwater).

Finally, it is important to focus and plan for capacity building and policy alignment. For example, governments can invest in local climate research and training for officials. Scientists can help design evidence-based land management policies (e.g., banning unsustainable charcoal, guiding reforestation) and advise on climate-smart agriculture. Growing capacity to train extension workers ensures that government policies reach farmers and pastoralists effectively.

Is your department collaborating across borders and disciplines to prepare for climate-related disasters?

Yes, the Climate Change Department at the MoECC is actively collaborating with partners to strengthen preparedness for climate-related disasters. For example:

Regional Cooperation: We work with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country trade bloc and Regional Economic Community in Eastern Africa. IGAD hosts a Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) to access regional climate forecasts and early warning data.

Research Partnerships: We also collaborate with universities. For example, Amoud and University of Hargeisa and international partners to help generate applied research on drought resilience, land restoration, renewable energy, and disaster risk reduction.

Multidisciplinary Engagement: We work with climate advocates and civil society to help raise awareness at the community level and feed local knowledge into policy decisions.

What inspired you to join the International Science Reserve – and why should others join too?

I joined the International Science Reserve because I wanted to bridge the gap between global scientific knowledge and local action in Somaliland. Being part of this network allows me to learn from experts, share our experiences, and bring practical, evidence-based solutions to communities facing climate and environmental challenges.

I encourage others in government to join because it strengthens the link between policy and science, enhances disaster preparedness, and empowers us to make decisions that can truly improve lives and build resilience for future generations.

Going to Extreme Environments to Research our Changing Planet

September 19, 2025
by ISR Staff

Blog

Dr. Kimberley Rain Miner is an Earth scientist, professor, author, and motivational speaker. Dr. Miner is currently the Associate Program Manager for Wildland Fires at NASA and an extreme weather and health scholar at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the United States.

Ahead of Climate Week in New York City, Dr. Miner spoke to the International Science Reserve about her work and research in the Earth’s most extreme environments to understand how the planet is changing.

Congrats on your new book! What inspired you to write it?

Thank you! The goal of my book was to address the challenging questions I frequently encounter during lectures and talks. People have shared their concerns about food and water availability in the future, having kids, and even sustainable housing. My book seeks to address those topics in a way that is approachable for a variety of audiences.

Your work focuses on the intersection of Earth system change and health. Why is working across disciplines essential to our understanding of a changing planet?

There are so many complex ecosystems on this planet, not to mention the geology, atmosphere, and water cycle–it is a very intricate system. Human health is similar, with specialties focused on different parts of the human body and lifecycle. So, the challenge for those of us interested in both human and environmental health is bringing all of those experts and disciplines together to work on problems that impact us all.

After the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year, you supported a team at NASA that surveyed the damage and toxic chemicals released. What have you learned about the nature of chemicals in wildfires, and what do governments and disaster managers need to know to prepare?

What we are learning again and again is that the compounds that humans release into the environment —intentionally or not —continue to cycle and move through the ecosystems. This can have severe impacts, particularly in the case of fires at the wildland-urban interface, where these chemicals are introduced to delicate ecosystems or systems that are already stressed and under threat.

Humans are used to the Arctic being a sink for the planet. Snow falls, and with it, so does pollution from the atmosphere. Your research looks at how the rapid thawing of permafrost is not only releasing carbon and methane – but some lesser studied organisms and contaminants.

What are you finding out about emerging hazards?

My work on the release of legacy chemicals from both glaciers and permafrost in the Arctic has illuminated that the footprint of human civilization is everywhere. We found that compounds including nuclear and pesticide waste from the 1940s until now could be remobilized as the Arctic warms, a very concerning prospect.

*From fighting wildfires to working on glacier ice, Dr. Miner’s global research takes her to the most extreme environments to research climate change.*

The Arctic is a resource rich region with rapidly evolving geopolitics. Why is it critical that scientists work together across borders, particularly in this region?

The Arctic spans many nations, necessitating collaboration and engagement among scientists focusing on this region. We have worked together across nations for many years; this collaboration is a strength that helps produce cutting-edge scientific findings.

I am sure our readers are, to put it lightly, a little terrified after learning more about your research. I sure am. What keeps you motivated/gives you hope?

I am motivated to do research focused on human and natural system dynamics because I know that we can do better. We have the capacity to stop the release of chemicals and plastics into the environment, improving the health of the humans, animals, and insects who share this planet. I think there is a clear path to planetary health – I hope we decide to take it.

Learning from History to Prepare for Future Public Health Emergencies

August 18, 2025
by ISR Staff

Blog

Dr. Landry Ndriko Mayigane is a technical officer for health emergency preparedness and response at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. In his role, he provides support to countries across the world to strengthen emergency preparedness and response capacities.

Dr. Mayigane recently spoke to the International Science Reserve about his work and how collaborations, like the ISR, can contribute to better responses to public health crises. The interview was undertaken in his personal capacity and not in his official WHO capacity.

How did you get involved in emergency preparedness and response?

I have over 20 years of experience working on health emergencies. My journey began by supporting Senegal in building its national emergency preparedness efforts for highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1). I went on to help West African countries respond to H5N1 when it was first declared on the continent in 2006, during my first UN assignment with the FAO’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases.

In 2014, while working for the African Union, I led a complex response to the Ebola outbreak in Guinea. There, I supervised a team of over 120 multidisciplinary health workers from 11 countries. I was honored with a Medal of Service to Humanity by the AU Chairperson, H.E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, in recognition of my bravery and leadership demonstrated during the outbreak.

For nearly a decade, I have worked for WHO at both country and global levels. After Guinea, I moved to Mali to help the country build its capacity to prepare for and respond to health emergencies amid a compounded and protracted humanitarian crisis, particularly in the northern region.

During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2020, after relocating from Mali to the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Switzerland in 2018, I led the development of a performance assessment tool known as the Intra-Action Review (IAR). This tool has been used globally to support course correction, continuous learning, and the improvement of national and subnational response strategies for the pandemic and other protracted emergencies. An analysis conducted in 2022 showed significant benefits from its implementation. As of 2 April 2025, 193 IARs have been conducted by 92 countries and reported to WHO.

My current focus is on supporting countries in preventing, preparing for, and more effectively responding to future health emergencies—including the next pandemic—by building resilient learning systems.

You recently co-authored a piece about learning from public health emergencies through the crisis of knowledge failure. Why is learning from history important?

In public health, learning from history is crucial because it provides us with insights to guide future emergency responses. Past experiences reveal which strategies succeeded, highlight encountered challenges, and expose critical gaps in preparedness. By analyzing historical events, we can design resilient systems that are better equipped to handle emerging threats. We achieve this by leveraging the latest technology and developing systems that capture experiential knowledge from previous health emergencies. This approach creates a rich repository of lessons that bridges the gap between academic research and real-world practice.

However, common approaches to learning in this field have significant limitations. Traditional methods often rely on retrospective analyses and published studies, which can delay the integration of valuable insights into current policies. This lag hinders timely improvements in emergency response. Moreover, these approaches tend to overlook the nuanced, context-specific experiences of frontline responders, resulting in strategies that may be overly generic and less effective when applied to complex, dynamic situations. An overemphasis on quantitative data can also obscure the qualitative insights essential for understanding the full scope of challenges faced during crises.

Integrating historical lessons with experiential knowledge creates a more comprehensive learning process that fosters continuous improvement. This integration not only prevents the repetition of past mistakes but also promotes innovative, context-sensitive strategies for future outbreaks. Ultimately, embracing both quantitative analysis and qualitative wisdom strengthens public health systems, ensuring that our collective memory becomes a powerful tool in building a safer, more prepared global community.

Moreover, by actively incorporating lessons learned into dynamic training and simulation exercises, public health practitioners can rapidly adapt strategies as new challenges emerge. This proactive approach accelerates learning cycles and reinforces a culture of preparedness and innovation, ensuring that both policy and practice remain responsive to the ever-changing landscape of global health threats. Learning from history saves lives.

Dr. Mayigane leading a Rift Valley Fever outbreak investigation under heavy military escort in Menaka, a northern Mali region facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and occupied by multiple armed groups, October 2016.

What is an Early Action Review (EAR)?

Early Action Reviews (EARs) are proactive tools in public health designed to detect and address emerging threats before they escalate into full-blown outbreaks. Rather than waiting for a crisis to develop, EARs promote a gradual learning process—emphasizing early detection, rapid notification, and swift response.

Central to this methodology is the use of the 7-1-7 target, a common benchmark that assesses the effectiveness of clinical, laboratory, and public health detection and response systems. Specifically, this target means that emerging threats should be detected within seven days, reported to the appropriate authorities within one day, and a comprehensive response initiated within seven days.

At the heart of the EAR approach is the integration of real-time data analysis with the practical insights of frontline responders and community stakeholders. This balanced method combines quantitative metrics—such as surveillance data and epidemiological trends—with qualitative observations from those directly involved in early response efforts. By merging these data sources, EARs offer a comprehensive picture of potential threats, facilitating a deeper understanding of both statistical trends and on-the-ground realities.

A key tactic within EARs is the implementation of scenario-based simulations and drills. These exercises test the robustness of existing emergency response plans under various hypothetical conditions, thereby revealing critical gaps and opportunities for improvement. Regularly conducting these reviews ensures that response strategies remain dynamic and adaptable, with resources optimally allocated before an outbreak intensifies.

Furthermore, EARs foster cross-sector collaboration by engaging experts from government, healthcare, and local communities. This collaborative framework builds a unified, flexible response system that is responsive to the complexities of real-world situations. Ultimately, EARs shift public health from a reactive, crisis-management stance to one of proactive preparedness and continuous learning.

By emphasizing early intervention, EARs not only help prevent local outbreaks from evolving into pandemics but also enhance the overall resilience of health systems, saving lives and equipping communities to face future public health challenges.

How can countries work together to prepare in advance for emergencies?

Public health emergencies, such as pandemics, do not respect national borders. To effectively respond, countries must proactively collaborate and develop synchronized preparedness plans. By employing standardized methodologies such as EARs, countries can effectively learn from each other regarding early detection, rapid notification, and swift response to public health emergencies. This shared approach enables countries to “speak the same language” through common tools and methodologies.

Importantly, such collaboration among countries is encouraged by the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), an international legal framework designed to prevent and manage public health risks. For example, Caribbean countries recently integrated EARs into their emergency preparedness strategies with support from the Pandemic Fund. In November 2024, a multi-country EAR exercise was organized by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (Headquarters), the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), and the 7-1-7 Alliance.

This event brought together participants from 12 Caribbean nations to enhance their capacities in outbreak detection, notification, and response. The participating countries included Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

*Dr. Mayigane engaging elementary school students in Yomou, a prefecture in Guinea bordering Liberia, on Ebola prevention and vaccination, September 2015.*

Each country contributed recent 7-1-7 target data from their most recent outbreak, and collectively, they explored strategies to integrate EARs into their national health systems. This exercise helped countries proactively identify shared threats, system failures, and good practices, harmonize response protocols, and build mutual trust.

With the support of PAHO and CARPHA, such EAR exercises support Caribbean countries in developing cohesive regional strategies. These strategies will ensure rapid, effective, and collective action to prevent and swiftly control public health crises as they emerge, ultimately safeguarding both local populations and the global community.

How does bringing together experts, such as public health researchers, other scientists, and emergency responders, help?

Such collaboration and partnerships, like with the ISR, facilitate the sharing of experiential knowledge, ensuring that insights gained from real-world emergencies inform science and predictive models, thus improving preparedness for and responses to future emergencies. By fostering continuous dialogue and joint action, these collaborations build trust and coherence among diverse stakeholders, enabling more effective and coordinated responses to health crises.

Moreover, integrating experiential knowledge and evidence-based science into decision-making processes enhances the adaptability and resilience of health systems, ultimately safeguarding communities worldwide. Everyone has a role to play in preventing the next pandemic.

Disclaimer: Institutional affiliation is provided for identification purpose only and does not constitute institutional endorsement. Any views and opinions expressed are personal and belong solely to the individual and do not represent any people, institutions or organizations that the individual may be associated with in a personal or professional capacity unless explicitly stated.

Key Takeaways from ISR’s Global Survey on Cuts to Climate and Weather Data in US

August 12, 2025
by ISR Staff

Blog

The US government is rapidly scaling back the collection, analysis, and availability of federal climate and weather datasets and systems. In the summer of 2025, the ISR surveyed its 20,000 members to better understand how these changes may impact researchers and experts across sectors, disciplines, and geographies.

At the International Science Reserve, we want to understand the perspective of those who live and work outside of the US, but have relied on America’s “gold standard” climate and weather data and modeling for their own research.

Survey respondents represented a variety of sectors and disciplines. Most that responded identified that they worked either in a professional sector (40%), such as emergency management or advising a municipality on disaster response—or are currently conducting research in a university setting (40%). Their expertise ranged throughout many disciplines, but environmental science, data science, and social science were some of the top areas of focus.

Here are three major takeaways from the survey:

1) Data cuts to US climate and weather data are already impacting researchers’ work.

When asked whether changes to US federal climate and weather data in 2025 caused them to discontinue or significantly scale back this project, about 20% of participants said that their work was already impacted.

The US has historically made data open and freely available to the world.

One survey respondent, Dr. Fulya Aydin-Kandemir, a climate scientist and senior expert at the Climate Change and Zero Waste Department of Antalya Metropolitan Municipality in Türkiye, told the ISR that the global climate modeling system has benefited from the US open-source system:

“We use many global data sources. But for decades, institutions like NASA and NOAA have set the global standard for Earth observation and climate science—providing a foundation upon which agencies like the European Space Agency (ESA) and The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) have also built their own impressive capabilities. Thanks to that legacy, we all became stronger in fighting climate change — together.”

Dr. Fulya Aydin-Kandemir, a climate scientist from Türkiye and International Science Reserve member.

2) The majority of respondents were unsure about where they would go to replace US data given it has been the “gold standard” for decades.

At the time of the survey in May and June 2025, nearly 60% of experts that responded were unsure where they would go to replace high-quality data. News reports have documented that scientists and citizens around the world are practicing “guerilla archiving,” meaning that they are downloading the existing databases before they are taken offline.

Dr. Aydin-Kandemir noted that in a 2024 study of precipitation and snow cover analysis in the Central Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey, she found that US Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS), which has measured global rainfall for nearly three decades, outperformed European data in their study areas. “It wasn’t about preference—it was about what worked for our region. These datasets helped us uncover real signals of climate change.”

Recent reporting by Reuters in August found that the EU and European governments are planning new initiatives that mirror or possibly end their dependency on United States scientific data sets.

3) The biggest concern for researchers is long-term gaps in climate modeling and data.

Most experts who participated in the survey identified that the US cuts could lead to long-term consequences for understanding climate change and adequately preparing communities to for the impacts of climate change. Additionally, less accurate extreme weather and reduced trust were also identified as top concerns among respondents.

Dr. Aydin-Kandemir went on to tell the ISR, “If the U.S. cuts off access to these datasets, it’s not just a technical loss—it’s a loss of trust, of global cooperation, and of motivation. These tools represent decades of shared scientific progress. They make our work possible. In the face of the climate crisis, we need more collaboration—not isolation.”

Whether or not you responded to our survey or are directly impacted, your perspective matters to the International Science Reserve.

If you are an ISR member, please join us on the Digital Hub Discussion to further discuss your concerns and the potential consequences of cuts to US climate and weather data. Your perspective will help inform future programming, advocacy, and community support.

Preparing for Abrupt Hazard Events with a Gamified Volcanic Eruption and Supply Chain Disruption Scenario

May 15, 2025
by ISR Staff

Blog

Iceland recently marked the 15th anniversary of the eruption of its Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which erupted in 2010 and sent volcanic ash across Europe. The volcano’s impact brought Europe’s aviation system to a standstill with more than 100,000 canceled flights.

Depending on the size and scale of an eruption, volcanic ash can blanket large areas of farmland, smother crops, and even make the soil less fertile while causing even further-reaching effects on global food security. The ash from the 2010 eruption not only coated and destroyed local Icelandic farmers’ agricultural fields, but the mass flight cancelations left farmers as far away as Kenya with rotting vegetables and thousands of workers were laid off.

Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption was relatively small by global standards, yet contemporary volcanic eruptions provide important clues for researchers studying the vulnerability of interconnected global systems like aviation and food supply chains during a crisis—and how to strengthen them ahead of future hazards.

Larger eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991, spewed out enough sun blocking material to shade and cool the planet, leading to larger and longer-term climatic impacts. More recent research has shown that climate change may make the impact of volcanic eruptions wider by spreading ash further—causing more disruption and potential for a cool down in the climate.

*The summit caldera on August 1, 1991, a month and a half after the June 15 climactic eruption. (T. J. Casadevall, U.S. Geological Survey)*

In the International Science Reserve’s latest “serious game,” the Volcanic Eruption Game, we put scientist in the driver’s seat to play out what they would do during a hypothetical volcanic eruption. In the game, a volcano erupts in Indonesia and injects dangerous levels of sulfur into the atmosphere.

The game asks players to be decision-makers in crisis. Players must consider how the eruption will disrupt food supply chains around the world and how to reduce the scenario’s most harmful impacts. By playing this game, the players are able to explore how to respond to an abrupt hazard event like a volcanic eruption, and how their choices may change based on shifting situations, incomplete information, and risk assessments.

The International Science Reserve, now a network of scientists more than 20,000 scientists and scientific institutions, uses games to simulate real-life scenarios or drills that can improve the capacity to collaborate, communicate, and make informed decisions in high-pressure crisis situations. Gamification through ISR’s suite of “serious games,” makes the experience of learning crisis preparedness skills more engaging for participants, encouraging wider participation, and contributing towards a culture of readiness.

Ready to try it out yourself? Play the ISR’s Volcanic Eruption Game! Earn badges, climb the leaderboard, and be recognized as a top player and top contributor in a global scientific community.

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