Research Interests: Sociology of Disaster,
Crime and Deviance, Organizational Deviance, and Research Methods.
Gary R. Webb, Associate Professor, specializes
in the sociology of disaster. He is currently working on two research
projects funded by the National Science Foundation. One project involves
a study of improvisation among first responders to the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing and the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. The other project
examines the governmental
response
to
Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, focusing on organizational and structural barriers
in using the Incident Command System. Additionally, he is conducting
research on the role of public and private sector organizations
in the production
and concealment
of environmental
risks.
At the undergraduate level, he regularly teaches courses
in Social Research Methods and Criminology, and at the graduate
level, he offers seminars in Organizational Deviance and the
Sociology of Disaster.
He serves as Chair of the Arts and
Sciences Faculty
Council at OSU and as the Secretary/Treasurer of the International
Sociological Association's Research Committee on Disasters.