Natural Disasters

News about UB’s research and advocacy in extreme events and disaster response. (see all topics)

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UB-RIT-Wendel team wins national home design competition
11/5/25
‘California Rebuilds’ invited architects to showcase the power of passive house design in creating sustainable, fire-resilient communities.
Study links climate anxiety to social media use
10/30/25
Climate doom, the belief that climate change will cause societal breakdowns, predicts support for radical actions, according to study.
Ryan Zhenqi Zhou receives national scholarship for geography research
9/19/25
The PhD candidate applies geospatial data science and AI to address natural disasters, public health challenges and more.
Study: Experimental bird flu vaccine excels in animal models
4/17/25
Vaccine platform, proven effective for COVID-19, could be key in responding to evolving bird flu strains.
Media Advisory: Earthquake simulations to test masonry buildings common in NYC, nationwide
6/4/24
There are more than 800,000 masontry buildings in New York State, and the test results will help officials improve building codes.
UB-led team awarded $750,000 NSF grant to study wildfire inequities
2/28/24
Project addresses emergency management disparities between wealthy, low-income groups.
AI-enhanced indoor farming takes root at the University at Buffalo
2/20/24
Project uses AI to monitor plant health and fine-tune LED lighting systems; could help with food insecurity and sustainability issues.
Media Advisory: UB to conduct earthquake building tests Thursday
12/20/23
Researchers will use shake table to simulate quake on full-scale wood-frame building; could help change building codes, make new buildings safer.
How ChatGPT could help first responders during natural disasters
12/6/23
Researchers train language model to recognize location descriptions in Hurricane Harvey social media posts.
Researchers awarded NSF grant for Lahaina wildfire simulation
10/10/23
Interdisciplinary team to combine AI, high-performance computing and modeling to better understand Lahaina fire; reduce likelihood of future disasters.