Journal of Geography  & Natural Disasters
Open Access

Thomas J. Cova

Biography

Dr. Thomas J. Cova is an associate professor of Geography at the University of Utah and the Director of the Center for Natural & Technological Hazards. He received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon and an M.A. and PhD in Geography from the University of California Santa Barbara where he was an Eisenhower Fellow. His research and teaching interests are hazards, transportation, and geographic information science with a particular focus on evacuation modeling, behavior and analysis. His 2005 paper in Natural Hazards Review resulted in a new national standard for transportation egress in wildfire-prone areas (NFPA 1141). He has published papers in Transportation Research (A & C), the International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Natural Hazards, Geographical Analysis, Natural Hazards Review, and Environment and Planning A funded primarily through grants from the National Science Foundation. In 2008 he served as Program Chair for the International Conference on Geographical Information Science (GIScience 2008) in Park City, Utah.

Research Interest

Hazards
Transportation
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with a particular focus on evacuation modeling
Behavior
Analysis