Jacob Pastor-Paz

Jacob is an economist and a cartographer/geomatician by training. He has a PhD, looking at property insurance and climate change risk in New Zealand, focusing on extreme precipitation-induced floods and landslides. Jacob has researched the relationship between flood risk and forest land cover.

Before starting his PhD, Jacob worked as a research analyst of seismic risk, remote sensing and cartography at the National Institute of Geography of Ecuador. Other professional experiences include research analyst positions at QuakeCore NZ Centre for Earthquake Resilience, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the National Institute of Statistics of Ecuador and stints at the National Institutes of Statistics of Uruguay and Peru as a consultant for the Organisation for the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Jacob’s research interests include natural hazards and climate change risk assessments and poverty. Jacob is an enthusiastic contributor to data collection endeavours that include the analysis, dissemination and preservation of socio-economic and environmental data and metadata.

Jacob has moved on from Motu Research to a role at GNS Science, Te Pū Ao.