Stephen Flynn, Ph.D.
Founding Director, Global Resilience Institute | Global Resilience Institute
Boston, MA, UNITED STATES
Dr. Flynn is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on critical infrastructure and supply chain security and resilience
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Biography
Dr. Stephen Flynn is Founding Director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University where he leads a major university-wide research initiative to inform and advance societal resilience in the face of growing human-made and naturally-occurring turbulence. He is a Professor of Political Science with affiliated faculty appointments in the College of Engineering and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. Professor Flynn has previously served as President of the Center for National Policy and spent a decade as a senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2008 he served as the lead homeland security policy adviser for the Presidential Transition Team for President Barack Obama. Dr. Flynn was an active duty commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years, including two tours as commanding officer at sea. He is co-author of the textbook, Critical Infrastructures Resilience: Policy and Engineering Principles (2018), and author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, 2007), and the national bestseller, America the Vulnerable (HarperCollins 2004). In September 2014, he was appointed by Secretary of Homeland Security to serve a member of the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Council (HSSTAC). He also serves as chair of the Massachusetts Port Authority Security Advisory Committee. Prof. Flynn holds the M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and B.S. from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
Areas of Expertise (7)
Emergency Management
Border Management
Resilience
National Security
Homeland Security
Infrastructure Protection
Supply Chain Security
Accomplishments (5)
Honorary Doctorate of Laws
Monmouth University, 2009
Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1994-95
Annenberg Scholar-in-Resident
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1993-94
Council on Foreign Relations’ International Affairs Fellowship
Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, 1991-92
Edmund A Gullion Prize
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 1988, for highest academic achievement
Education (3)
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University: Ph.D., International Relations 1991
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University: M.A.L.D., International Relations 1990
U.S. Coast Guard Academy: Government, B.S. 1982
Affiliations (2)
- Life Member, Council on Foreign Relations
- Member, U.S. Naval Institute
Links (2)
Media Appearances (5)
If a major storm hits, will Boston be ready?
The Daily Free Press
2017-12-12
Stephen Flynn, the founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University, said Boston is less at risk of a direct hit by a hurricane due to atmospherics in the area and the gulf stream pushing the storm out into the Atlantic Ocean. However, Flynn said tracking storms in the area can be tricky, as it is difficult to tell if a hurricane will make landfall in the northeast or go back out to sea until it has passed the point of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, a sort of “switching station” for hurricanes in the region. Once it has passed that point, Flynn said a storm could theoretically reach Boston in under 24 hours, making planned evacuations in the city challenging...
National disaster expert visits Northwest
K5 News
2017-09-29
Stephen Flynn, PhD. is the founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University and a nationally known expert on surviving and recovering from disasters. This week he helped lead a meeting of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, an organization representing four northwestern states, plus Alaska and western Canadian provinces and territories. That meeting included pipeline companies, electrical utilities, water districts and other public and private entities ability to survive a disaster...
Harvey brings out ‘hidden capacity in civil society’ to respond
News @ Northeastern
2017-08-29
Professor Stephen Flynn, founding director of Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute, said that Harvey has underscored a need for communities to continue to enhance their preparedness for extreme weather events. It also, he said, has brought into the spotlight a critical factor in community resilience: “the hidden capacity in civil society that comes out often in these events.”...
How resilience can blunt impact of terrorist attacks
News @ Northeastern
2017-06-06
We asked Northeastern professor Stephen Flynn, founding director of the university’s Global Resilience Institute, to reflect on the importance of remaining resilient in the face of chronic terrorism...
Resilience in the 21st century
News @ Northeastern
2017-04-11
But just what is resilience? And how will the Global Resilience Institute help build a more flexible, nimble world in the face of growing global turbulence? These are a few of the questions we asked the institute’s founding director Stephen E. Flynn, professor of political science with affiliated appointments in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering...
Articles (5)
The Role of Community Resilience in Advancing Security
State, Society and National Security: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century
2016 In the aftermath of the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik, wrote that “terrorist nihilism is an inevitable and recurring product of modernity... Terrorism will not end”. Gopnik's sobering observation was seemingly confirmed just three weeks later when on December 2, 2015, the community of San Bernardino, California tragically endured an attack on a training session and holiday gathering of local public health officials. The husband and wife attackers, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen …
The South Carolina Deluge: Lessons from a Watershed Disaster: A Center for Resilience Studies Assessment
Northeastern Center for Resilience Studies
2016 On October 4, 2015, the Midlands area of South Carolina (centered on metro Columbia and encompassing the counties of Richland, Lexington, and portions of Fairfield) received between 17 and 24 inches of rain in less than a 24-hour period. Other regions of the state received amounts from 6 to 15 inches within the same period. This intense precipitation was preceded by several weeks of above average rainfall. The deluge on October 4 landed on already saturated soils, and riverine systems (i.e., reservoirs, lakes, impoundments, and their watershed networks) that were near or at capacity. The result was overtopping, dam failures, and historic flooding that damaged and disrupted critical infrastructure across the region, inundated 160,000 homes, and led to the loss of 19 lives.
Bolstering critical infrastructure resilience after Superstorm Sandy: lessons for New York and the nation
Northeastern University. George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security, Center for Resilience Studies
2015 Superstorm Sandy seriously compromised the energy, transport, communications, water, and health sectors for the New York/New Jersey metro-region, revealing the fragility of the nation’s critical infrastructure. As a result the Center for Resilience Studies at Northeastern University’s George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security brought together experts from coastal urban communities around the country along with those who were on the frontlines of responding to and recovering from Superstorm Sandy. Meetings were held between the two groups to discuss and overcome the barriers to creating infrastructure resilience. The results and recommendations of the group are in this report.
The Role of Citizens in Detecting and Responding to a Rapid Marine Invasion
Conservation Letters
2015 Documenting and responding to species invasions requires innovative strategies that account for ecological and societal complexities. We used the recent expansion of Indo‐Pacific lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) throughout northern Gulf of Mexico coastal waters to evaluate the role of stakeholders in documenting and responding to a rapid marine invasion. We coupled an online survey of spearfishers and citizen science monitoring programs with traditional fishery‐independent data sources and found that citizen observations documented lionfish 1–2 years earlier and more frequently than traditional reef fish monitoring programs. Citizen observations first documented lionfish in 2010 followed by rapid expansion and proliferation in 2011 (+367%). From the survey of spearfishers, we determined that diving experience and personal observations of lionfish strongly influenced perceived impacts, and these perceptions were powerful predictors of support for initiatives. Our study demonstrates the value of engaging citizens for assessing and responding to large‐scale and time‐sensitive conservation problems.
Participatory conservation of coastal habitats: the importance of understanding homeowner decision making to mitigate cascading shoreline degradation
Conservation Letters
2015 Along densely populated coasts, the armoring of shorelines is a prevalent cause of natural habitat loss and degradation. This article explores the values and decision making of waterfront homeowners and identifies two interlinked and potentially reversible drivers of coastal degradation. We discovered that: (1) misperceptions regarding the environmental impacts and cost‐effectiveness of different shoreline conditions was common and may promote armoring; and (2) many homeowners reported only altering their shorelines in response to damage caused by armoring on neighboring properties. Collectively, these findings suggest that a single homeowner's decision may trigger cascading degradation along a shoreline, which highlights the necessity of protecting existing large stretches of natural shoreline. However, our study also found that most homeowners were concerned with environmental impacts and preferred the aesthetics of natural landscapes, both of which could indicate nascent support and pathways for conservation initiatives along residential shorelines.
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