Dr.
Irina Rafliana

Irina Rafliana studied Sociology of Knowledge and Science and Technology Studies. She completed her PhD research at the University of Bonn with her monograph titled ‘Traveling Waves of Knowledge and Technologies – the Indonesian Tsunami Warning System’. Through an ethnographic approach to research and using the lens of science and technology studies, the monograph addresses alternative ways of understanding the complexity of humans, technologies and nature/earth relationships.  

Irina has worked in the domain of tsunami risk communication, risk assessment  as well as inter- and transdisciplinary research on disaster risk reduction in the past 20 years, with a focus on Indonesia and the Indian Ocean region. She led several national assessments on the effectiveness of the tsunami warning system based on real events in Indonesia (2012-2018). She initiated the Indonesian Social Science Panel for Disaster Research shortly after the Palu tsunami in 2018. She finished her Master’s studies at the University of Indonesia in 2015, and her postgraduate research deployed dimensions of social constructions of knowledge on tsunamis in Mentawai islands, where she spent time living with coastal dwellers and tsunami survivors at the post-disaster resettlement. She was a member of the Global Science and Technology Advisory Group (STAG) for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) in 2017-2019 and the Vice Chair of the working group on the Dissemination of European Tsunami Science Consortium (AGITHAR). She is currently one of the members of the global Joint Tsunami Commission. She also advised Indonesia's U-INSPIRE (Youth and Young Professional Platform on Science and Technology and Innovation for Disaster Resilience). She is an associate researcher for the Center for Life Ethics and is working on the SocialByNature project, as well as the ERC StG SharedSea project. Irina is also a researcher at the National Agency for Research and Innovation (BRIN) Indonesia.