Mikaela Cochran

As practitioners, evaluators, or donors, we all hold different perceptions or mental abstracts of how our interventions work and what is required to implement. These perceptions or mental abstracts are our unique mental models of the world, which are influenced by our backgrounds, experiences, values, and expectations. Through my doctoral research at the University of Bath, I am exploring how our different mental models of interventions affects our ability to localize and coordinate our work as humanitarians in anticipatory action.

While it is generally agreed that anticipatory actions (AAs) in humanitarian response are actions taken ahead of the onset of disaster to mitigate and reduce damages, there is limited consensus as to what these interventions consist of (i.e., what they should respond to, how they should be responded to, and what they should be informed by). This research will explore how variation in our mental models among practitioners, evaluators, and donors strengthens or limits our ability to coordinate and localization anticipatory actions.