Louise K. Comfort is professor and former director of the Center for Disaster Management, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. She is principal investigator of a National Science Foundation project to deploy and test an early tsunami detection and warning system. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Harkunti P. Rahayu is a professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Department, School of Architecture, Planning, and Policy and Development at the Institute of Technology of Bandung. She serves as chair of the UNESCO Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System Working Group on Tsunami Risk, Community Awareness and Preparedness.