Oluponmile Olonilua is an Assistant Professor of public administration at Texas Southern University's Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs in Houston. She became involved in disaster research after personally experiencing Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.

Her research interests include hazard mitigation plan evaluation and the effect of disasters on minorities and special populations. She has researched Tropical Storm Allison and evacuation problems during hurricane Katrina of 2005.  Her dissertation, Towards Multihazard Mitigation: An Evaluation of FEMA-Approved Hazard Mitigation Plans under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA2K), evaluated over 200 plans approved under DMA2K.

She is currently working on implementation research as a follow-up to that evaluation and looking at the effect of state mandates on the DMA2K plans. She is a proud winner of the Mary Fran Myers Scholarship Award: a scholarship which recognizes outstanding individuals who share Myers' commitment to disaster research and practice and have the potential to make a lasting contribution to reducing disaster vulnerability.  She was a panelist on the Natural Hazards Center’s session on Planning for Disaster in Disadvantaged Communities.