Prof.dr. Tina Comes

Full Professor

I am the director of the TPM Resilience Lab as I firmly believe that our societies need to become more resilient. I have a background in Decision Theory and coordination. Since my PhD, I have been determined to better understand decision-making of individuals and groups in the context of risk, crises and disasters. Decision-makers need to rapidly react to a growing number of crises to ensure the resilience and sustain­able growth of our society. Whether it is Covid19, winter storms causing severe power outages or political instability and riots: disruptions have become more common. Combined with the proliferation and volatility of data and the digitalisation and interconnectedness of our societies, this implies that decision-mak­ers need to make increasingly un­certain and far-reaching de­ci­sions at an accelerating pace. In my research, I aim to develop methods and approaches that support decision-makers in these situations by connecting the analytical and behavioural branches of decision theory to pro­mote societal resilience. This ranges from questions about how to organize information sharing from the bottom up to ensure that decision-makers get the information they need by the time they need it to the just and fair organization of humanitarian supply chains. I am committed to working with decision-makers from practice, and much of my research has been funded by national and international funding. In my role as the director of the TPM Resilience Lab, I would like to bring together the different perspectives of systems, governance and values to shape a shared understanding of resilience that cuts across the different infrastructures or research streams. I think we can truly advance the field by this interdisciplinary work.