Amer Hamad Issa Abukhalaf is a Ph.D. candidate at the Design, Construction, and Planning College, University of Florida. Amer works as a research assistant at the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience, and he is a member of the Disasters, Trust, and Social Change Research Lab. Amer researches Risk Management and Safety Design with a focus on Natural Hazards, Built Environment, Crisis Management, Disaster Risk Mitigation, and Emergency Planning. Amer is a civil engineer and a structural designer by practice, and he has a master's in executive management from Ashland University in Ohio. Amer is also a member of the Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division at the American Planning Association, and he is a PMI-certified practitioner. Amer is a UF registered Hurricane Expert and a UF Outstanding Merit Award receiver for 2021. Amer authored 24 peer-reviewed published papers in top journals in the fields, including the International Journal of disaster risk reduction, Disaster Prevention and Management, and Natural Hazards.