About Jeannette
Jeannette Sutton, PhD, specializes in disaster and risk, with a primary focus on online informal communications, and public alerts and warnings disseminated via terse messaging channels. Much of her research investigates the evolving role of information and communication technology, including social media and mobile devices, for disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.
She is the founder of The Warn Room, LLC.
Dr. Sutton has held numerous grants from the National Science Foundation, as well as NOAA, USGS, FEMA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Naval Research.
Dr. Sutton's research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society; Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management; Weather, Climate and Society; Information, Communication, and Society; and Health Communication. She is also a current member of the Committee on Effective Communication of Weather, Water, and Climate Information (CECWCI) of the American Meteorological Society and an Associate Editor for the Natural Hazards Review and Weather, Climate, and Society. Jeannette holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder and completed her postdoctoral training at the Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado, Boulder.
She currently works as an Associate Professor at the University at Albany, in New York where she directs the Emergency and Risk Communication Message Testing Lab.
Be Sure To Visit...
The Warn Room and follow the link to my webpage to learn how to write better, more effective, warnings.
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Featured publications (freely available)
DOWNLOADED MORE THAN 10,600 TIMES WORLDWIDE
Warning Lexicon includes 48 hazards, their associated impacts, and 112 protective action statements spanning atmospheric, technological, biological, and human-induced events. The result of this project is a comprehensive, theory-based, expert-informed, and practitioner-reviewed resource to support the composition of warning messages for imminent threat events.
Be sure to access the supplemental materials that includes the templates for 48 hazards.
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Sutton, J., Kuligowski, E., Olson, M., Wapole, H., & Wood, M. (2024). Measuring the Effectiveness of Disaster Warning Messages: A Forum. Natural Hazards Review.
The Forum addresses a key question frequently raised by practitioners: how do we measure the effectiveness of disaster warning messages? We lay out the case against measuring compliance and instead point toward improving messages that motivate action and increase self-efficacy.