Dr Billy Haworth

The recipient of the CRC’s Special Recognition Award in 2016, Dr Billy Haworth was a fantastic ambassador for the CRC. He was one of the first CRC students to complete his PhD in 2017. Billy’s PhD research was widely recognised, and he was awarded with the International Association of Wildland Fire PhD scholarship in 2015, the 2015 Esri Australia Young Scholar award, the University of Sydney Faculty of Science Postgraduate Research Prize in 2015 and a University of Sydney special recognition award in 2016.

Billy’s research looked at volunteered geographic information (VGI), community engagement and bushfire preparation. VGI refers to the widespread engagement of citizens in the creation of geographic information, often through social media, smartphones and online mapping tools. It represents a shift in the ways information is created, shared, used and experienced, and has important implications for disaster management.

Billy’s PhD research examined the role of VGI in fostering community engagement in bushfire preparation in Tasmania, where VGI has potential to aid in building risk awareness, community connectedness and increased disaster resilience. His findings show that VGI is more than just technology – it is about people sharing their knowledge and mapping collaboratively as a social practice. It presents opportunities for citizen empowerment in line with shared responsibility, but also challenges with power moving away from the traditional command and control of emergency services.

Billy’s research provides a clearer path for emergency service agencies to best-utilise these technologies for and with communities, helping to increase volunteering sustainability, community engagement and disaster resilience.

Billy undertook a work placement with the Tasmania Fire Service in 2016 and presented his research findings at the CRC’s Research Forum, as well as the largest academic geography conference globally, the Association of American Geographers annual meeting in 2015.

He is now a lecturer in disaster management and Director of Postgraduate Teaching at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute.