Steven Hawthorn is a highly motivated, experienced, capable researcher with an intellectual curiosity and perseverant attitude. With ten years UK experience Information Technology, Steve Hawthorn was a scientist at the research agency DERA (later QinetiQ), progressed to researcher, team leader and project manager, before moving to Infotech, as Technical Programme Manager working with colleagues in London and India. Logica, as a consultant, project manager and business development researcher was his final role before moving to Morocco, where his wife was undertaking a research project, and also has family connections. In addition to his MSc (Geographical Information Systems), he also acquired professional qualifications UK teacher status and CELTA, to teach in schools and English as a foreign language. Throughout his time spent in Morocco, he taught in various educational environments (from university - EuroMed, University of Fes, professional engineering school - ESISA, language school - American Language School, and French secondary school - Agence de l' Enseignement Francais a l'Etranger AEFE, Fes). His intellectual curiosity, interest in risk and disaster management the application of AI to real world problems led him to explore how innovative technologies could be developed to enhance learning amongst teenagers through 'serious games'. He developed the idea for the Doctorate research proposal following the very successful completion of his Risk, Crisis & Disaster Management MSc from Leicester University, Civil Safety and Security Unit, where his dissertation achieved 77% (Distinction). The concept of developing a serious game on tsunami risk communication, targeted at teenagers, emerged from his direct practical experience of educational gaps in natural hazards education, combined with attendance at serious games workshops at the Understanding Risk Conference 2014 hosted by Pablo Suarez, (Red Cross) and using games for grammar teaching with teenage learners. A deep understanding of the educational potential of adaptive learning systems combined with serious games on a teenage audience; combined with the urgent need to better equip educational professionals with communication tools; will help address sustainable development goals and effectively translate scientific outcomes for the general public. He reached out to Maria Ana Baptista (ISEL) internationally renowned tsunami specialist, who had been working with Rui Jesus (Computer Science, NOVA LINCS) and together they developed a PhD proposal. He started his research in Morocco, where he carried out a tsunami risk perception survey on teenagers (n=190), discussed his research with specialists in Rabat where he presented his initial work (see publication details below). He built on this first presentation as well as the results of the survey to pursue his PhD in Lisbon where he is now based. His paper 'A review of digital serious games for tsunami risk communication' is under 2nd review by the International Journal of Serious Games. His focus on teenagers as key actors and audience for Child Centred Disaster Risk Reduction initiatives led to the submission of an abstract to the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Disasters - Researchers Meeting, organized with the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure facility at the University of Colorado Boulder. Of UK nationality, his publications focus on indexed international journals written in English. In order to pursue the development and testing of his serious game in the multidisciplinary area of application of innovative technologies to disaster risk management which, with the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) is highly topical, contributing to enhanced environmental education and applicable in numerous policy settings, he is now seeking funding.