When the Dust Settles - lessons from a life in disaster

Sir Thomas and Lady Edith Dixon Lecture.

Lucy Easthope is a leading authority on responding to and recovering from emergencies. For over two decades she has challenged others to think differently about what comes next after complex, tragic events. She is a passionate and thought-provoking voice in planning for pandemics, conflict, sudden death and disaster, and has been a tactical advisor to international emergency responders since 2001.

She is the author of The Recovery Myth and of the Sunday Times Bestseller ‘When The Dust Settles’. Her new book ‘Come What May’ was released in May 2025.

She has a special interest in the care and return of personal effects after disaster, writing and advising internationally on this subject. Her further research interests include the effectiveness of legislation in the field of emergency management, children and young people in disaster and the human aspects of risk management, insurance and business continuity processes. She is also regularly called upon to provide reflective debriefs and ‘lessons’ reports.

Her research and practice portfolio includes the UK coronial process, mass fatalities planning, legal aspects of emergencies, identifying lessons post incident, the effectiveness of public inquiries, interoperability, and community resilience in practice. Lucy has developed contingency plans, training programmes and exercises with many organisations including government bodies, charities, airports and airlines, universities and emergency services.

Lucy is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, UK.

She is a former member of the UK Cabinet Office Behavioural Sciences Expert Group.

She is a member of the International Counter Terror Preparedness Network Humanitarian Assistance Group. She also sits on the Disaster Working Group for the British Association of Social Work.

She holds an LLB (Bristol), Masters in Risk, Crisis and Disaster management (Leicester) and PhD in Medicine (Lancaster).

Links:

www.whatevernext.info

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/22/lucy-easthope-profile-disaster-response

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