In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Zachary Collier, assistant professor at Radford University and longtime member of the Society for Risk Analysis, to explore a hidden but increasingly urgent problem in global supply chains: intellectual property theft through overproduction. Drawing on his research in semiconductor supply chains, Dr. Collier explains how designers and manufacturers navigate trust, incentives, and risk with millions of dollars on the line.

He breaks down how game theory helps illuminate the strategic decisions each party faces, why overproduction is so difficult to detect, and how approaches like split manufacturing can reduce vulnerability.

When disaster strikes, how do we rebuild...and do we do it differently? The answer might start with something simpler than we think: listening to the people already living with risk.

In this episode, we chat with Ben Raschnock, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University, whose work sits at the intersection of civil engineering, operations research, and real-world decision-making.

Ben studies how disasters don't just destroy things. They cut people off from what they need most. Floodwaters block roads. Power outages shutter grocery stores. A preferred doctor becomes unreachable. His research reframes community resilience through one powerful lens: access to essential services.

We also dive into the bigger picture of aging infrastructure, climate surprises that break models, and why the most valuable data in disaster research might already exist in the community conversations.

Two veteran risk analysts reflect on how scientists, academics, and federal employees (both former and current) are planning for the day agencies can be rebuilt. Adam Finkel, professor at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health and former head of regulation at OSHA, and Vicki Bier, retired faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, make the case that the worst thing reformers could do is simply restore the status quo. After decades of regulatory running on autopilot, a once-in-a-generation disruption may be the opening we've been waiting for.