Risk-info was created in November 2020 by eleven students of the University of Lausanne (Unil) in Switzerland. The website aims to deliver news and analysis of events liked to the issue of risk and its communication in Switzerland and across the world. The team, studying geological and environmental risks, shares the values of scientific factualism and neutrality.
An editorial board meeting is held each week to discuss the general direction of the website and to guarantee the flow of articles. All eleven members of the team attend these weekly meetings. Three members are in charge of the Covid-19 section, three people act as co-editors and two manage the website. All members contribute to the writing of articles.
The team
Justine Chaubert
Covid-19 columnist, writer and illustrator
Since I was a child, I have always been interested in nature and its multiple functions. It is precious to us and that is why I decided to study in the environmental field. I wish to preserve it as well as possible.
Elise Cerutti
Website management, writer
I was always fascinated with natural hazards in general but volcanoes were the most interresting to me. I wasn’t sure at first, when I applied for my Bachelor in Earth Sciences, if it was what I wanted to do. But before going to University, there was an hurricane in the North Atlantic. The East Coast of the USA was evacuated before the impact but little islands, mostly poor, were not. The consequences were heartbreaking and it was at this very moment that I knew I wanted to work in Natural Hazard so that I could help these people.
Mattias Ian Coullie
Covid-19 columnist, writer
Having wanted to understand how the world around us evolves, I did my Bachelor degree in Earth Sciences in Geneva. Interested in many types of geological risks, I am most interested in rockfall and will be working on a catchment in the Zermatt Valley for my Masters project. I am interested in a wide variety of risks and gladly write about them.
Anakin Duperrex
Covid-19 columnist, writer
Ever since my childhood, I have always been interested in animals and nature. They are crucial to us, I want to preserve them and that is why I decided to study in the environmental field. I did my Bachelor at the University of Lausanne between 2017 and 2020 and I continue with a Master in risks and natural hazards. Just before my Bachelor, I did one year in the military disaster relief; working on the field and training in order to be ready for a real disaster was really interesting but I needed to understand why these kinds of things are happening.
Natacha Dupertuis
Writer
Doing a master in Geological Risks that is given by the University of Geneva in common with the University of Lausanne, I am thinking orientating myself towards the risks engendered by bad landuses. Therefore, I wrote a research project about the increasing floods in Bamako due to an accelerated erosion of its lands. One reason of my interest for this subject is the inundation of my chalet during heavy rains in 2005. Since the village did some works to better drain the water.
Loïc Gerber
Co-editor, writer
Having followed a Bachelor degree in Physical Geography in Lausanne from 2016 to 2019, I developped a great interest for the interactions between risks and land use management. The issues of floodings and precipitation runoff are subjects which particularly interest me. After working for the Service des forêts et de la nature of the State of Fribourg for a year, and thus being confronted with natural hazards and risk management on a regular basis, it quickly became obvious that continuing my studies in this field was the right choice.
Yasmin Ghadyani
Co-editor, writer
I started my academic journey by studying for a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, but it was through passing environmental courses that I found my life goal: to become an environmental engineer. Therefore I decided to get my master’s degree in civil engineering with the orientation of environmental engineering. During the new year holidays of 2019, significant precipitations caused floods in several parts of my home country, Iran; the incidents left many people killed or hurt and caused damage to many properties. Observing this incident, which was later repeated in 2020, I decided to get a degree in environmental science with the orientation of natural hazards and risk to help increase the resilience of my home country, Iran, to natural hazards, especially floods.
Sylvain Köhli
Writer
I always been curiously attracted by natural disasters. I wanted to understand them, to learn more about them. Therefore my studies naturally conducted me to the university of Lausanne, where i begun a bachelor in geology. In the end of my first three years in Lausanne i was able to make analogical models of several natural hazards in attend to estimate the potential of this method in the analyse of gravity instabilities. Since i continued my studies and begun a Master, specialised in geological risks.
Gian-Battista Macor
Writer
I am someone who needs to go out everyday, to appreciate the quietness and play sports outside. So it appears to me as obvious that I must understand what I see everyday. My first formation was forest engineer, where I discover interactions between forest, planification and natural hazards. Even I appreciate discovering applied sciences during my Bachelor studies, the feeling of the globality, my communication skills and the maturation of my reflexion process appears to me like a lack. Now I am studying a master in environment and I improve all these aspects, following the coaching of others.
Tanja Orsatti
Website management, writer
After completing my bachelor’s degree in June 2020, I decided to start a master’s degree in environmental risks at the University of Lausanne. My interest in nature, the environment and everything related to it has always been very strong. In recent years, my interest in everything that surrounds us has increased, so I decided to undertake a study that would allow me to understand how nature works around us and its relationship with man and other species. I also like to know how other people perceive the outside world and how they react to the different events that affect us every day, especially in the last year. Communication has always been the basis of mankind and will always be a part of our society, which is why we created this website: to be able to communicate with outsiders who have similar interests to our own.
Daniel Uhlmann
Co-editor, writer
Being a mountain guide and alpinist for the past 15 years (and now Masters student in Geologic Risk), I’ve been able to see a variety of the Earth’s high mountain and high latitude terrain, from Afghanistan to Antarctica and some places in between. I have witnessed firsthand in my lifetime the changing high mountain landscape. By communicating to the public and exposing people to a broad range of topics about the intersection of the natural environment and humankind, we can help create more informed citizens.