Prior to joining the University of Extremadura (Spain) as Full Professor of Human Geography, Urbano Fra Paleo was Associate Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and Research Associate at the University of Denver (USA).
Urbano Fra Paleo is member of the UNDRR European Science and Technology Advisory Group (E-STAG), co-chair of the Task Force on Measuring Hazardous Events and Disasters, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and external expert of the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER); Honorary Research Fellow of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (CGIAR), and Member of the European Academy and of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, since 1997.
He holds a PhD in geography and a diploma in environmental engineering.
His research interests lie in the study of disaster risk governance, with particular emphasis on the institutional frameworks and policy solutions for disaster risk reduction.
He has edited the volumes Building safer communities. Governance, spatial planning, and responses to natural hazards (IOS Press, 2009), Risk governance: The articulation of hazard, politics and ecology (Springer, 2015), and Family Farms and the Conservation of Agrobiodiversity in Cuba: Food Security and Nature (Routledge, 2023) with Leonor Castiñeiras.