A memorial service for Mary Fran Myers, co-director of the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will be held Tuesday, April 6, at 1 p.m. at the Crist Mortuary, 3395 Penrose Place in Boulder.
Myers died on April 1 after a long battle with cancer. She was 52.
Myers came to the Natural Hazards Center in 1988 as project manager and subsequently was promoted to co-director. During her tenure with the university, she published numerous articles and contributed to several books on hazards mitigation, reduction and risk. She also volunteered on numerous national boards and committees dealing with disaster reduction, including the National Research Council's steering committee for the National Disaster Roundtable, several National Science Foundation committees, and the board of directors of the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
Myers also was an advocate and mentor to numerous graduate students who worked at the hazards center and encouraged students to write doctoral dissertations on groundbreaking topics in natural hazards research. She oversaw the center's Quick Response Research Program, which sends researchers to disaster sites shortly after they occur, and she consulted with experts around the world on ways to reduce the impacts of disasters.
In 1997, she received the Association of State Floodplain Managers' highest individual honor, the Goddard-White Award, in recognition of her many contributions to improving floodplain management in the United States. In 2002, a subcommittee of the International Sociological Association established the Mary Fran Myers Award in her honor, recognizing her sustained efforts to advance women's careers and promote research on gender issues in disaster and emergency management.
As the center's co-director, Myers was responsible for managing all ongoing center activities, including organizing the annual Hazards Research and Applications Workshop (the nation's premier meeting on hazard reduction), administering the Quick Response Research Program and supervising the center's numerous publication and library services programs. She oversaw the center's funding efforts and maintained an extensive network of center friends and colleagues around the nation and the world.
Myers was instrumental in maintaining the center's international reputation as a driving intellectual force in the hazards field. Her work helped to bring about a fundamental change in national and international perspective regarding hazards and helped institute a new, more far-sighted and sustainable way of dealing with extreme environmental events.
Donations in her memory can be made to the Mary Fran Myers Scholarship Fund, created to bring participants to the annual Hazards Workshop who otherwise would not be able to attend. Checks should be made payable to the "University of Colorado Foundation" and sent to the Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado, 482 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0482.
More information is available from Diane Smith at the Hazards Center at (303) 492-6818 or by e-mailing diane.smith@colorado.edu. For more information about the memorial service, call Crist Mortuary at (303) 442-4411.
For more information on Myers see the Hazards Center Web site at http://www.colorado.edu/hazards.
