George Walter Baker

Background

George Walter Baker was born on June 15, 1915, in Seaford, Delaware, United States.

Education

Baker earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Delaware in 1939 and his Master of Arts in 1947 from the same university. He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1952 from the University of North Carolina.

Career

After working for three years as a high school teacher, Baker served in the United States Army during World War II and participated in the Okinawa campaign. He then returned to teaching briefly before joining the Human Resources Research Institute at Maxwell Air Force Base as a project officer in 1951, becoming a program officer in 1953. During the 1950s he was also a senior scientist with the Air Force Personnel and Training Research Center in Texas and team chairman at the Special Operations Research Office of American University. From 1959 to 1963 he was technical director of the Disaster Research Group for the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council. He spent the remainder of his career at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., where from 1963 to 1978 he conducted disaster research, becoming program manager of Research Applied to National Needs in 1971.

Baker was the co-editor of Symposium on Human Problems in the Utilization of Fallout Shelters (1960), Behavioral Science and Civil Defense (1962), and Man and Society in Disaster (1962), as well as co-author of The Occasion Instant: The Structure of Social Responses to Unanticipated Air Raid Warnings (1961).

Achievements

• George Baker was best known for his research on how societies react to disasters and related stressful situations. Baker was also known as the co-author and co-editor of several books.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Symposium on Human Problems in the Utilization of Fallout Shelters 1960
  • Behavioral Science and Civil Defense 1962
  • Man and Society in Disaster 1962
  • The Occasion Instant: The Structure of Social Responses to Unanticipated Air Raid Warnings 1961

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series (Volume 217) brings researchers the most recent data on the world's most popular authors.
  2011