Today we a public health update with public health expert Esther Chernak of Drexel, and a discussion of improvisation & disaster research with Tricia Wachtendorf, co-director of the DRC at UDEL.

Dr. Esther Chernak.  Esther  is a professor in the Department of Environmental Health, Drexel University School of Public Health, and has a position in the Drexel University College of Medicine. She is the director of the Center for Public Health Readiness and Communication at Drexel. Prior to joining the Drexel faculty in 2010, Dr. Chernak worked at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health for over 25 years.

Tricia Wachtendorf is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware and Director of the Disaster Research Center – the oldest center in the world focused on the social science aspects of disaster. Over the past two decades, her research has focused on multi-organizational coordination before, during and after disasters, transnational crises, and social vulnerability to disaster events. Dr. Wachtendorf has engaged in quick response field work after such events as the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the tsunamis affecting India, Sri Lanka (2004) and Japan (2011), Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012), as well as the earthquakes in China (2008) and Haiti (2010). With numerous research grants from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, she has published widely on improvisation in disasters as well as disaster convergence. SHE IS CO-AUTHOR, WITH James Kendra of American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evac of Manhattan on 9/11, Temple Press.

EP #54 -Esther Chernak & Tricia Wachtendorf

A podcast about disasters around the world.

EP #54 -Esther Chernak & Tricia Wachtendorf

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