John Frederick Schneider

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT JOHN FREDERICK SCHNEIDER

John is Senior Advisor to GEM (Global Earthquake Model) Foundation and a disaster risk management consultant. He has decades of experience in the assessment of natural hazard risks globally, in building inter-disciplinary capability across academic, public and private sectors, and in strategic planning. John served as the Secretary General of GEM Foundation from 2016 to August 2023. John has been involved with GEM since its formation in 2009, serving as a member of the Governing Board representing Australia from 20••••15, including as Vice Chair 2011 to 2013, and Chair (20••••15). GEM is a global public-private partnership and non-profit foundation based in Pavia, Italy that develops and disseminates open data, models and tools to assess earthquake risk and promote earthquake resilience worldwide. John received a PhD in geophysics from the University of Wisconsin (USA) and conducted post-doctoral research at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, researching subduction-zone tectonics and deep earthquakes in Colombia and Peru. He then shifted to private industry to work on earthquake hazard and risk assessment for nuclear power safety and insurance risk applications; he served as the first Chief Scientist for Impact Forecasting (Aon Corporation) in the late 1990s. John moved to Australia in to lead the development of a multi-hazard risk assessment capability for the Australian government, which evolved into a program on urban risk assessment in Australia, and later to capacity building programs on natural hazard risk in southeast Asia and the Pacific. Following the 2004 Indonesian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, John co-founded and led the Indian Ocean Tsunami Risk Assessment Committee as part of the UNESCO response to this devastating event. John is an expert in natural hazards risk assessment and in the application of risk information to support decision-making for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. He serves on the Risk Modelling Steering Group of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). He has served in many international advisory roles on natural hazard risk assessment, including for the UN on the development of a Global Risk Assessment Framework (20••••21) and on the Science & Technical Advisory Group (20••••16) for the United Nations Offices for Disaster Risk Reduction. In that capacity, he actively participated in the development of the risk assessment pillar for the Sendai Framework for DRR (2015). He has published widely on earthquake, tsunami and climate change hazards and risks.