Biographical notes:
An anthropologist and town planner, Franco La Cecla teaches Cultural Anthropology at the San Raffaele University of Milan and at the EPFL in Lausanne. He has also taught Cultural Anthropology in Venice (IUAV), Barcelona (UPC) and Berkeley (UCB), and has published, amongst others, “Perdersi” (Laterza), “Il Malinteso” (Laterza), “Surrogati di presenza, Media e vita quotidiana” (Bruno Mondadori), “Modi Bruschi” (Bruno Mondadori) and “Contro l’Architettura” (Bollati Boringhieri). He has worked as a consultant for Renzo Piano and for the Municipality of Barcelona, and is the President of ASIA, Architecture Social Impact Development. Together with the director Stefano Savona, he has made the documentaries “Sicilia Tunisia, un confine di specchi” and, for the Centre Pompidou, “Gestualités indiennes, les portable en Inde”.

Biographical notes:
Professor Ian Davis, a British Architect, has specialised in Shelter and Reconstruction following Disasters since 1972. He edited the first UN guidelines on ‘Shelter after Disaster’ and is currently part of a team developing Guidelines for the World Bank in Washington on Housing Reconstruction. He has visited over forty countries to provide advice to Governments, the United Nations, Non Governmental Agencies and the Private Sector on ways to reduce disaster risks and promote effective recovery. In 1996 he became the first British Citizen to be awarded the United Nations Sasakawa Award for his contribution to reducing international disaster risks. 
He has visited Italy on many occasions to lecture in various universities and to study earthquake situations in Sicily, Basilicata and Friuli. He has written or edited 16 books on Disaster Planning and is currently visiting Professor in Disaster Management in Cranfield, Oxford Brookes and Kyoto University.