Dr Max Hope, Course Director

Dr Max Hope

Course Director

Max is a Principal Lecturer in Human Geography and Planning who joined the School of Built Environment and Engineering from Ulster University in March 2016.

His research and teaching focus on challenges and implications of contemporary environmental change and in particular the role played by informal actors and non-governmental organisations in environmental governance and social transformation. Key issues include natural hazards vulnerability, climate change adaption, ecological citizenship and the links between science, technology and society. He is particularly interested in the relationship between expert-led and community responses to these challenges and related issues of knowledge exchange, co-production and adaptive transformation.

Current Teaching

Max teaches on the MA Town and Regional Planning, MA Housing, Regeneration and Urban Management, BA (Hons) Human Geography and BA (Hons) Human Geography and Planning programmes. His research into teaching and learning focuses on education for sustainable development, geography fieldwork pedagogies and the political economy of learning. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He is supervising or has recently supervised PhDs on:

  • Community earthquake/tsunami disaster risk reduction in Sumatra
  • Household energy behaviours in post conflict Northern Ireland
  • The ‘community effect’ in community-led environmentally friendly behaviour
  • Natural science- humanitarian knowledge exchange for disaster risk reduction
  • Education for Sustainable Development
  • The Political Economy of Learning
  • Disaster Risk Management in Malaysia

Research Interests

Max has been part of a number of Natural Environment Research Council and Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) projects to develop aftershock forecasting tools to inform decision making after damaging earthquakes. Earthquakes can’t be predicted but it is increasingly possible to forecast the aftershocks that occur after a major earthquake. These tools will be useful to humanitarian and other organisations coordinating emergency response activities in post-earthquake situations.

Currently he is co-investigator in a £19 Million, 5 year, GCRF funded interdisciplinary research hub to address Urban Disaster Risk in Istanbul, Kathmandu, Nairobi and Quito.

Dr Max Hope, Course Director

Ask Me About

  1. Geography

Selected Outputs

  • Hope MJ; McCloskey J; Hunt D; Crowley D (2016) Integrating aftershock forecasting into humanitarian decision-making: lessons from the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.

  • Hope M; McCloskey J; Nicbhloscaidh M; Crowley D; Hunt D (2019) Triggering Multi-Actor Change Cascades: Non-Representational Theory and Deep Disaster Risk Management Co-production. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

    https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619894878

  • Hope MJ; McCloskey J; Hunt D; Crowley D; NicBhloscaidh M (2019) Innovation Pathways to Adaption for Humanitarian and Development Goals: A Case Study of Aftershock Forecasting for Disaster Risk Management. Journal of Extreme Events

    https://doi.org/10.1142/S2345737618500100

  • Davies AJ; Hope MJ (2015) Bayesian inference-based environmental decision support systems for oil spill response strategy selection. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 96 (1-2), pp. 87-102.

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.05.041

  • Breen C; Reid G; Hope M (2015) Heritage, identity and community engagement at Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 21 (9), pp. 919-937.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2015.1035737

  • Shannon R; Hope M; McCloskey J; Crowley D; Crichton P (2014) Social dimensions of science-humanitarian collaboration: lessons from Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia. Disasters: the journal of disaster studies, policy and management, 38 (3), pp. 636-653.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12064

  • Hope MJ; Shannon R; McCloskey J (2011) The Bengkulu premonition: cultural pluralism and hybridity in disaster risk reduction. Area

    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01029.