I study how people and institutions understand, prepare for, and respond to risks and crises, and how they adapt to long-term change. Two questions organize much of the work.
How do people and organizations perceive and interpret risks, and what enables or constrains preparedness and protective response?
This work looks at why recognizing a disaster, climate, or health risk does not reliably lead to protective action, and at what changes that. It spans disaster risk, tornado warnings and false alarms, hurricane and flood preparedness, risk perception, trust, social norms, and health risk, including misinformation.
How do institutions and policy systems anticipate long-term structural change, prepare for its consequences, and adapt over time?
This is the current and developing agenda. The unit here is mostly institutional: financing, distribution, governance, labor markets, and institutional design, not individual willpower. Population aging, pensions, and social protection are the present focus; earlier work on skills and education-system change belongs here too. The public publication base for this question is still thinner than for the first.
Practice
Generating, synthesizing, and making evidence usable for policy, communication, services, and digital tools. This is how the research connects to the projects: policy analysis, research synthesis, comparative work, communication, user research, and building tools. It is a way of working, not a third research question.
See the projectsPublications organized by topic. Some work here, including public relations measurement, reputation and crisis-response studies, and disaster representation, sits outside the two questions above and is kept as part of the record rather than forced into them.
Lim, J. R., & Llopis, J. (2024). In B. F. Liu & A. M. Mehta. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Risk, Crisis, and Disaster Communication (pp. 364-382). Routledge.
Lim, J. R., Liu, B. F., Atwell Seate, A. (2022). Risk Analysis.
Lim, J. R. (2022). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Open Access PDF (AMS Version of Record)Open Access · AMS Version of Record
Liu, B. F., Egnoto, M., & Lim, J. R. (2019). Weather, Climate, and Society, 11(3), 521-534.
Lim, J. R., Liu, B. F., & Egnoto, M. (2019). Weather, Climate, and Society, 11(3), 549-563.
Lim, J. R., Liu, B. F., Egnoto, M., & Roberts, H. A. (2019). Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 27(4), 331-345.
Liu, B. F., Xu, S., Lim, J. R., & Egnoto, M. (2019). Public Relations Review, 45(4), 101831.
Ledford, V., Lim, J. R., Namkoong, K., Qin, Y., & Chen, J. (2021). Health Communication.
Qin, Y., & Chen, J., Namkoong, K., Ledford, V., & Lim, J. R. (2020). Health Communication.
Dugas, M., Pinzon Hernandez, D. A., Lim, J. R., Vakis, R., Afif, Z., Hasumi, T., & Elfadel, D. N. M. (2024). (Policy Research Working Paper No. 10933). World Bank.
Lim, J. R., Vakis, R., Cameron, C., & Dugas, M. (2022). World Bank.
Lim, J. R., Jun, H., & Ledford, V. (2025). Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
Islam, K., Edwards, A. L., Shi, D., Lim, J. R., Sheppard, R., Liu, B. F., & Seeger, M. W. (2022). The Learning Organization.
Liu, B. F., Shi, D., Lim, J. R., Islam, K., Edwards, A. L., & Seeger, M. (2021). Journal of Business Ethics.
Liu, B. F., Lim, J. R., Shi, D., Edwards, A. L., Islam, K., Sheppard, R., & Seeger, M. (2021). Journal of International Risk and Crisis Communication. 4(3), 451-483.
Dugas, M., Lim, J. R., Afif, Z., Chatila, M., Pinzon Hernandez, D. A., & Vakis, R. (2024). (Report No. 201042). World Bank Group.
Badiani-Magnusson, R., Lim, J. R., & Moscoe, E. E. (2022). (Report No. 176568). World Bank Group.
Lim, J. R., Moscoe, E., Alqunaibet, A., Pinzon Hernandez, D. A., Alruwaily, A., Chatila, M., Alfawaz, R., Zoratto, L., Afif, Z., Vakis, R., Al-Yasseri, B. J. H., Alsukait, R. F., Nguyen, S. N., Herbst, C. H., & Algwizani, A. (2024). Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 30(3), 182-195.
Pinzon Hernandez, D. A., Lim, J. R., Dugas, M., Moscoe, E. E., Chatila, M., Cameron, C., Vakis, R., Afif, Z., & Orozco Olvera, V. H. (2024). (Policy Research Working Paper No. 10981). World Bank.
Gill, R. T. J., Afif, Z., Dugas, M., Ikindji, M., Lim, J. R., & Nasr, N. (2026). (Report No. 212331). World Bank Group.
Lee, S. Y., Lim, J. R., & Shi, D. (2022). Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 1-25.
Buntain, C. L., & Lim, J. R. (2018). Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-18.
Page, T. G., Atwell Seate, A., Chatham, A. P., Lim, J. R., Shi, D., Ma, L., & RW, R. (2025). Public Relations Review, 51(3), Article 102581.
Lim, J. R. (2020). International Journal of Strategic Communication.
Lim, J. R., & Lee, S. Y. (2022). Public Relations Review, 48(4).
Lim, J. R. (2019). Institute for Public Relations.
Mateo Diaz, M., Lim, J. R., Cardenas-Navia, I., & Elzey, K. (2022). Inter-American Development Bank
Mateo Diaz, M., Lim, J. R., Cardenas-Navia, I., & Elzey, K. (2022). Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.
Wolvin, A. & Lim, J. R. (2022). Inter-American Development Bank.
Mateo Díaz, M., & Lim, J. R. (Eds.). (2022). Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo.