Brigadier General Alois A Hirschmugl joins CRJ's Advisory Panel 

A warm welcome to BrigGen Mag D Alois A Hirschmugl, who has agreed to sit on Crisis Response Journal's Editorial Advisory Panel.

Mr Hirschmugl is currently Humanitarian Affairs Advisor to the Austrian Chief of Defence Staff, with more than 30 years of military experience.


_{Brig.Gen. Mag. D Alois A Hirschmugl}

His humanitarian commitment started on a voluntary basis in the (Youth) Red Cross, where he was a volunteer expert for 10 years. Mr Hirschmugl has been a member of the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Co-ordination team and a Civil Protection Expert for the European Commission since 1999. As well as his peace-keeping tour to Cyprus (1986), he has participated in numerous UN and EU missions, including: Flooding in Mozambique (2000), Bangladesh (2004,) and Pakistan (2010); earthquake disasters in Algeria (2003), Iran (2004) and Indonesia (2006); and the South-East Asian tsunami (2005), the explosion of an ammunition depot in Albania (2008) and the 2011 explosion at the Evangelos Florakis naval base in Cyprus, which destroyed the island's main power plant.

Mr Hirschmugl is also an independent consultant for disaster management advice and training (www.dmat.at) as well as a trainer/lecturer for different institutions. He is involved in EU Civil Protection projects like EUTAC, EURETS, EURAMET, and GEO-PICTURES. He holds a Master and Doctorate degree in law and has published a handbook on the legal aspects of peace support operations, humanitarian and disaster management operations.

Under the presidency of the former USG, Mr. Kofi A Annan, Mr Hirschmugl also was a foundation board member of the Global Humanitarian Forum.

We are delighted that Mr Hirschmugl has joined the Panel, and look out for the next issue of CRJ, which will include an article he has written discussing whether new technology made a difference in the international community's support for the Pakistan Government's rsposne activities during the 2010 floods.