A New Center Brings Universities, Insurance Companies, and NASA To The Table

“Duke University and the University of Georgia are partnering with leaders from the insurance and climate data industries to launch the Center for Innovation in Risk, Catastrophes, and Decisions (CIRCAD), a new initiative focused on advancing insurance innovation and large-scale risk mitigation,” stated a university press release in 2025. The center is funded by the National Science Foundation to reimagine insurance and emerging risks associated with extreme weather.

However, CIRCAD has an interesting twist because of its unique partnership with the insurance industry and NASA. “Weather and climate risk is no longer just an environmental challenge. It is a challenge for insurance markets and investment decisions, and community resilience,” said Mark Borsuk, the Duke University-based director and a professor of civil and environmental engineering. "CIRCAD was created to bring together industry leaders and researchers to develop the data, tools, and decision frameworks needed to manage climate risk more effectively and help communities adapt to a changing world.” he continued.

The Emerging Home Insurance Void Is Tied To Extreme Weather

If you have followed recent headlines, many insurance companies are trying to adjust to that changing world. Zac Taylor is an assistant professor of urban development management at Delft University of Technology. He wrote a piece in The Conversation about home insurance in Florida, the exodus of the industry, and the “so what?” for families. “In Shore Acres and elsewhere, the climate crisis becomes tangible when you receive your annual homeowners insurance bill. Sustained, year-over-year price increases have been well documented in Florida and other states,” he wrote. “It isn’t uncommon to hear local news stories about neighbors who are seriously struggling to keep up with insurance payments. Nor is it surprising to learn that a neighbor has been dropped by yet another insurer, or that they’re being asked to replace their roof if they want coverage from a new carrier,” he went on to say.

Gilbert Gaul echoed a similar concern. “After years underestimating the risks posed by climate-fueled disasters, the U.S. home insurance industry is in turmoil. In vulnerable areas, rising insurance costs are upending housing markets and communities, as homeowners scramble to try to find insurance they can afford,” he warned in Yale Environment 360. “The fundamental purpose of insurance is to provide protection and transfer risk. But this is proving increasingly difficult in a time of more widespread, acute and severe weather events,” said a PwC website. It continued, “Solutions to mitigate climate risk are going to be expensive and no single group — insurers included — has the wherewithal to address it alone.” A 2025 study published in Nature also described the growing home insurance void.

Some Industry Leaders are Being Proactive

That’s why efforts like CIRCAD are needed. It is a co-production model with insurance stakeholders at the table. CIRCAD’s inaugural partners include American Family Insurance, Aon, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, Liberty Mutual, NASA, USAA, and WTW. “Through this partnership network, CIRCAD will work with industry and government leaders to develop new insights, tools, and approaches that improve how individuals, organizations, and communities anticipate, manage, and recover from catastrophic events,” noted the CIRCAD website. CIRCAD is one of several NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) that seek to accelerate breakthrough research and impact through partnerships. Many topical areas including advanced manufacturing, materials, and biotechnology have been seeded by the IUCRC concept.

In recent years, the focus has been on insurance and hazards with the funding of CIRCAD, a joint Duke University and University of Georgia center, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Convective Storms, a partnership between Northern Illinois University and University of Wisconsin. While NSF supplies funds to administer the Center, the partnering member institutions play a critical resource role. “The other path of funding for research, students and lab equipment, that’s all coming from private industry,” said CIRCS Director Victor Gensini in an NIU press release." CIRCAD operates on the same funding model.

“Extreme weather poses a complex, universal threat that no single industry can solve alone. At CIRCAD, we break down silos by uniting atmospheric scientists, engineers, and economists,” said Marc Ragin, who leads the UGA side of the CIRCAD partnership and is a professor in the Terry College of Business. “Our priority is simple: to deliver high-impact, real-world research that helps organizations and people manage extreme weather risk today and build resilience for tomorrow,” he said. He’s right. I am an atmospheric scientist in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences working with geographers, risk management scholars, engineers, AI experts, and environmental scientists. I would have never envisioned collaborating with someone like Ragin, a risk management expert, during my graduate school years. However, challenges facing the world require such multi-disciplinary collaborations.

Why Is NASA In The Mix?

Why is NASA at the table? I have a personal perspective on this as a former scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. During my time at the nation’s space agency, I served as Deputy Project Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. Though rooted in research and development, reliable, frequent precipitation measurements had value for agricultural, disaster management, weather forecasting, flood prediction and other applications. NASA’s Earth Sciences program has several missions, datasets, and models that are applicable to problems at the nexus of weather, climate, risk modeling, and translational applications.

CIRCAD’s Inaugural Projects Announced

CIRCAD recently announced its inaugural set of funded projects involving UGA and Duke scholars. They include:

1. Incentive Dynamics in Climate Resilience Systems: Insurance, Public Infrastructure, and Private Adaptation
2. Climate-Driven Aging, Dynamic Vulnerability, and Economic Network Cost Evaluation
3. Framing Environmental Risk: Modeling the Process of Climate-Contingent Investment
4. High-Resolution Weather Risk Assessment for Seasonal to Decadal Planning.