Jeff Schlegelmilch is a Research Scholar and the Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University. In this role, he oversees the operations and strategic planning of the Center. His areas of expertise include public health preparedness, community resilience, and the integration of private and public sector capabilities. Before working at Columbia, he was the Manager for the International and Non-Healthcare Business Sector for the Yale New Haven Health System Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response. He was also previously an epidemiologist and emergency planner for the Boston Public Health Commission.
Jeff Schlegelmilch has advised leaders on preparedness systems and policy at all levels of government. He is an Opinion Contributor with The Hill and is frequently utilized as a subject matter expert for numerous media outlets. He is also the author of Rethinking Readiness: A Brief Guide to Twenty-First-Century Megadisasters and co-author of Catastrophic Incentives: Why Our Approaches To Disasters Keep Falling Short, both published by Columbia University Press.
He holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from UMASS Amherst in Health Policy and Management and a Master’s in Business Administration from Quinnipiac University.
Thomas Chandler, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director, and Research Scientist at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, an Adjunct Associate Professor at Teachers College, and an Associate Member of the Columbia Climate School faculty, Columbia University. He focuses on post-disaster housing and economic recovery, mass care community sheltering and relocation assistance, pandemic preparedness and response, geographic and social networks, and community preparedness. He is the Director of NCDP’s FEMA training projects.
He has also been the Principal Investigator of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research study, “Evaluation of the Public Health System Response to Hurricane Sandy in the NY Metro Area”; Principal Investigator of a U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) research / training project, “Visualizing Social Media: New Tools for Research and Practice”; Co-Principal Investigator of a research grant funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, “Understanding Resilience Attributes for Children, Youth, and Communities in the Wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill”; Investigator for a grant funded by GSK: “Resilient Children/Resilient Communities Initiative”; and Co-Principal Investigator of a grant from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: “Performance Measure Development Project”. His work has appeared in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, The Journal of Social Studies Research, and Interactive Learning Environments.
Peggy Chao is the Director of Operations at National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). She has a master’s degree in International Business from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from New York University.
Her prior experience includes an administrative position at Rutgers-Public Health Research Institute, data analysis at KPMG, financial positions in Fortune 500 companies, and her own business specializing in high end juvenile products.
Zain Alabweh is a Staff Associate at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) working on the Resilient Children, Resilient Communities initiative and projects related to mitigating and adapting to climate risks. She joins NCDP from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society where she worked on managing climate risk for agriculture, public health, and energy.
Zain holds a Master of Public Administration in Development Practice degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She has experience in political analysis in the Middle East and North Africa region, customs and trade development in Jordan, developing collaborative management guidelines for protected areas in Cambodia, working in the fields of climate information and food security in Latin America and the Caribbean, and coordinating Middlebury College’s Arabic study abroad program in Jordan. Zain speaks Arabic, English and Spanish.
Thalia Balkaran is an Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Her focus is on adapting the Resilient Children/ Resilient Communities Initiative to the Small Islands Context in the Caribbean. Her area of expertise includes small islands, disaster risk reduction, vulnerability, resilience and sustainability. Thalia holds a PhD in Environmental Management from The University of the West Indies.
Laudan Behrouz-Ghayebi is rejoining NCDP as a Project Manager focusing on the FEMA training grants. She started her public health career working for NCDP primarily focused on the Student Surge Capacity for Outbreak Investigation (Team Epi!) program while contributing to the CDC-funded web-based training programs from 2004-2011. She then went on to work for Columbia University’s G.H. Sergievsky Center to manage a research study, “the Genetic Epidemiology of Alzheimer’s Disease in African Americans,” funded by the National Institute of Aging.
After relocating to Maine, Laudan worked closely with local and regional government agencies on various community-based public health campaigns. She also served as an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist for the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention, as Program Manager and Adjunct Faculty for the University of New England’s (UNE) Graduate Programs in Public Health, and as Adjunct Faculty for UNE’s School of Nursing and Population Health. Among the courses Laudan taught were Epidemiology, Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Global Health. Most recently, Laudan was a Writer & Researcher for One River Grants, a New York State-based grants development and consulting firm.
Laudan received her MPH in Epidemiology and Global Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Sarah (Sari) Lucille Blakeley is an Associate Research Scientist at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). Formerly, she was part of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University. Her research focuses on understanding how global climate change impacts human and natural systems across multiple spatiotemporal scales, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, this research focuses on food security, gendered impacts of climate shocks, financial risk management to natural disasters, climate variability, and climate change. Her research heavily focuses on application- finding solutions to real-world problems. Blakeley’s research examines how vulnerable populations make decisions under climate shocks and climate variability. She uses innovative technologies, spatial statistics, climate science, demography, and economic methods to analyze questions about food security, heat stress, and climate impacts. Blakeley received her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Geography, her MA from Columbia University in Climate and Society, and her BS in Economics, Interdisciplinary Studies, and French from Michigan State University.
Lucia Bragg is a Policy Manager and Instructor for the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) focusing on the FEMA housing and economic recovery training grants. She has been working in government affairs at the state and federal levels for a collective nine years. Prior to joining NCDP, Lucia directed federal disaster and FEMA policy advocacy for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) for nearly five years, lobbying Congress, and the administration on disaster policy during the development and passage of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, COVID-19 national emergency declaration and stimulus packages, transportation bills, and myriad supplemental disaster aid packages. Lucia also started and directed NCSL’s Public-Private Partnership on Disaster Mitigation and Recovery – a bipartisan task force of state legislators representing disaster-impacted districts and private sector partners from a range of sectors. Lucia holds an MA from Columbia University’s Climate School and BA in political science from Middlebury College.
Lisette Braman serves as Program Manager on the Financial Instruments Sector Team, a group managing insurance research, implementation, and education projects with a wide range of partners, supported by dozens of individual grants for projects that serve several hundred thousand farmers.
Before joining this team, Lisette served as Climate Risk Advisor to the American Red Cross, International Services Department. There, she provided technical support to increase awareness of climate variability and change in international disaster risk reduction programs. Lisette’s work with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement began in 2008 at the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, where she provided technical support to multi-country programs, including the Preparedness for Climate Change Program and Partners for Resilience. While working for the Climate Centre, Lisette was also based at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), where she helped facilitate the Partnership to Save Lives with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). This work involved liaising with climate scientists to provide tools and services that supported forecast-based decision-making, working as part of the Help Desk Team to provide disaster managers with rapid responses to climate-related questions, and coordinating an internship program, bringing graduate students with climate expertise to Red Cross/Red Crescent offices around the world. Lisette also documented the use of climate information by the Red Cross in West Africa for improved disaster preparedness and response.
Through the master’s program in Climate and Society at Columbia University, she gained interdisciplinary knowledge of climate variability and change. Before entering the field of Climate Risk Management, Lisette worked with non-profit organizations, including the Environmental Leadership Program and the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. Lisette earned her undergraduate degree in Environment, Economics, and Politics at Scripps College.
Ashley Curtis is a Project Manager for the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Previously, she was the training focal point for the International Research Institute (IRI) and Bangladesh country manager for the Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today for Tomorrow (ACToday) project. She also contributes to project management and research.
Ashley has worked at the intersection of science and society for over 15 years. Before joining IRI in 2008, she received her master’s degree in environmental science and policy at Clark University. She also worked at the Columbia University Tree Ring Laboratory and served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines. Her bachelor’s degree is in biology from Bard College.
Hannah Dancy is a Project Coordinator at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), where she supports the planning and implementation of FEMA training grant-based courses about post-disaster economic and housing recovery.
Prior to her time at NCDP, Hannah worked at Teachers College in the Digital Futures Institute, where she focused on introducing new learning technologies and processes to faculty in hybrid settings. She holds a Master of Arts in Ecology, Environmental and Conservation Biology from Columbia University, where she focused on the wildlife trade, captive animal behavior, and science communication. She is interested in the intersection of climate and environmental change with disaster preparedness, and how we can use effective science communication to prepare communities for these disasters.
Josh DeVincenzo, Ed.D., is the Assistant Director for Education and Training and Adjunct Lecturer at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia Climate School, Columbia University. He recently received his doctorate from Columbia University Teachers College with his dissertation on “Enhancing Capacity in Adult Climate Literacy: Investigating Sustainability Mindsets in the U.S. Emergency Management Profession”.
Dr. DeVincenzo focuses on developing learning experiences associated with FEMA training projects that navigate housing, economic recovery, mass care and sheltering, pandemic planning, and climate literacy. He has developed instructor-led and web-based curricula regarding financial literacy, economic impact analysis, and community partnerships.
He hopes to create accessible and quality educational programming that benefits the common good at scale. He holds a master’s degree in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and a Doctorate in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, focusing on Adult Learning and Cognitive Science. He has published his work on climate pedagogy and cognition in esteemed journals and outlets such as the Journal of International Affairs, Routledge, State of Planet, and The Hill.
Denise Dunlop is the Administrative Coordinator for The National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Ms. Dunlop began as the Administrative Assistant of the Pediatric Preparedness Program in May 2003. As Coordinator she is responsible for day-to-day financial accounting and office operations for the Center. Prior to joining Columbia, Ms. Dunlop was the Administrative Assistant/Office Manager for The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center.
Lauren Esposito is the Senior Project Manager at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). In her role, she supports the FEMA training grants, the Cities for Financial Empowerment project, the Pandemic Response and Resource Initiative (PRRI), the Resilient Children/Resilient Communities Initiative, and assorted communication development and dissemination efforts for NCDP research, practice, and policy outputs.
Lauren holds a master’s degree in Interactive Media with a concentration in Social Media from Quinnipiac University and earned her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute. Over the past twenty-five-plus years, Lauren has worked in marketing and communications, helping organizations, nonprofits, and small businesses reach their critical goals and outcomes. At NCDP, Lauren is interested in leveraging technologies to improve communication outreach and engagement for emergency preparedness, response, resilience, climate change impacts and adaptation, and policy development with special focuses on accessibility through 508-compliance and data visualizations.
Linfan Gan is an Instructional Designer/Staff Associate for the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) focusing on FEMA housing and economic recovery training grants. Linfan graduated from Columbia University’s Teachers College with a master’s degree in Instructional Technology and Media last year. She also holds a B.A. in Early Childhood Education and Family Studies from the University of Washington. Before joining NCDP, Linfan worked with the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, where she facilitated school faculty with instructional design for their hybrid and online courses. She is interested in education technology with a focus on creating engaging and immersive learning experiences.
Sean Hansen is a Staff Associate III at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, where he supports applied research efforts related to disaster preparedness, readiness, response, and recovery. In this capacity, he works closely with various stakeholders using mixed-methods research and providing technical expertise to identify areas of vulnerability and strategies for supporting resilient communities. Particular areas of interest include climate-linked disasters and various aspects of psychosocial support, food security, and social cohesion in affected communities.
Sean earned his Master of Public Administration in Development Practice from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he focused on humanitarian response, sustainable development, and disaster preparedness. Before joining NCDP, he worked in Washington, D.C., in policy and advocacy for a consortium of international development and humanitarian organizations. He is especially interested in the links between climate change, humanitarian crises, and conflict.
Shuyang Huang is a Staff Associate working on data management and analysis at NCDP. She earned a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) in 2023, and previously obtained an Urban Planning degree there in 2019.
Qëndresa Krasniqi is a Staff Associate at NCDP, where she supports research activities related to resilience building, COVID-19, and climate change. In this capacity, she will work on quantifying different elements of community resilience. Qëndresa earned her Masters in Public Administration in Development Practice from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she focused on social protection and social safety nets and the role of socio-economic and racial inequities on global food & agriculture systems, food security and access to health care services. Before joining NCDP, she taught Economics and worked in policy analysis and research with the IPCC, Health Care Without Harm and the European Stability Initiative (ESI). She is especially interested in incorporating the understanding of social vulnerabilities related to socio-economic and racial inequities in disaster preparedness and recovery.
Andrew Kruczkiewicz has more than 10 years of experience working with the humanitarian, development, and disaster management sectors, including the Red Cross, World Food Programme, and World Bank, designing early warning systems, impact-based forecasting standard operating procedures, and contributing to the design of global climate policy. Andrew conducts research on extreme weather and climate events, focusing on individual hazards, such as cyclones, floods, and other hydrometeorological hazards, as well as compound events. He is involved in the application of climate and weather data, including forecasting, risk assessment, and integration within policy and decision-making. Andrew is the Principal Investigator of the NASA-funded research project, Towards A Global Flood & Flash Flood Early Warning Early Action System, driven by NASA Earth Observations, which seeks to increase the ability to forecast various types of floods, including flash floods, and inform early warning and early action standard operating procedures.
He is a faculty lecturer in the Columbia Climate School’s Climate and Society graduate program and is Co-Director of the Climate School Network: Sustainable and Resilient Living in an Era of Increasing Disasters.
Andrew serves on numerous national and international task forces and committees, including the World Meteorological Organization Task Team on ENSO Information and the UN OCHA IASC Early Warning Analysis Cell. He frequently appears on national and international television, radio, and print.
Geneva List is a Senior Staff Associate at the Columbia University Climate School, with a joint appointment between the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) and the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP).
With over a decade of experience at the intersection of environment and international development, Geneva specializes in climate risk management and program evaluation. From 2018 to 2024, Geneva served as the monitoring and evaluation lead and project manager for climate services and index insurance projects at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), working extensively across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Before the IRI, she supported climate finance and agricultural programming in Latin America and the Caribbean at the Inter-American Development Bank. She also served as a climate change and environmental sustainability policy analyst at the Canadian International Development Agency (now Global Affairs Canada) and contributed to the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund at the International Development Research Centre. Geneva is passionate about engaging with stakeholders and beneficiaries in the field, having contributed to NGO programming on disaster relief and socio-economic development in Nicaragua and Peru.
She holds a Master of Arts in Geography and Development Studies from McGill University and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography with an interdisciplinary minor in International Development from the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Her research focuses on the accessibility and last-mile effectiveness of climate change adaptation approaches, and she has published in Climate Risk Management, Climate and Development, Natural Hazards, and the Journal of Hydrology.
Nitin Magima is part of the Financial Instruments Sector Team at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). In his role, he collaborates with climate scientists to devise strategies that assist national governments in mitigating climate risks. This involves partnerships with global entities like the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank, NASA SERVIR, Global Center on Adaptation, and One Acre Fund.
Previously, Nitin developed and executed research and training for climate risk reduction for Columbia University’s first World Project, Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow. ACToday provided 110 trainings in six countries, reaching over 2,150 participants, which helped national governments to develop climate forecasts and mapping tools for more effective national food security planning and policy.
Holding a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Nitin is proficient in applying statistical tools and data analytics to address diverse policy and climate-related challenges. He is also a FSA Credential Holder.
Max Mauerman is a Senior Staff Associate III at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) and a PhD candidate at the University of Reading Department of Agriculture, Policy and Development. His roles at NCDP include the development of decision-support tools for climate risk management and researching economic decision-making under climate uncertainty. Before joining NCDP, Max worked for Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), where he co-managed a large-scale evaluation of a rangeland conservation program in Namibia. He has also worked as a consultant for the World Food Programme and Tetra Tech on research topics related to climate resilience and conservation agriculture.
Dr. Daniel Osgood leads the Financial Instruments Sector Team at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), linking climate information to financial tools to improve livelihoods in developing countries. His team supports most index insurance projects that have gone to scale, with hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers purchasing index insurance contracts they have helped design through farmer-driven, science-based processes, leading to significant development impacts. His research topics include uncertainty in decision-making, environmental valuation, remote sensing proxies, information, and work specific to index insurance and economic development. He has been involved in global policy processes such as the UNFCCC, with projects he works on highlighted by Ban Ki-moon in the opening speech at the 2015 Paris COP. He has had press coverage in venues spanning Voice of America, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, Nature, New York Times, and Reuters.
Dr. Irwin Redlener is a Senior Advisor for the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), Columbia Climate School, at Columbia University, which works to understand and improve the nation’s capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Dr. Redlener founded NCDP in 2003 and served as its director from 2003-2020. He is a nationally recognized expert on disaster preparedness policies, pandemic influenza, the threat of terrorism in the U.S., the impact and consequences of major natural disasters and related issues. Dr. Redlener is the author of The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America which earned the 2020 Gold Nautilus Book Award. He is also the author of Americans At Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared For Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now. Previously, he served as one of the ten members of the congressionally established National Commission on Children and Disasters.
He also serves as a regular Public Health Analyst for MSNBC programs such as the 11th Hour with Brian Williams, Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace, Katy Tur, and more. Dr. Redlener is also a columnist for The Daily Beast on issues ranging from COVID-19 and public health to children and disaster management.
Dr. Redlener is also President Emeritus and Co-Founder, along with singer-songwriter Paul Simon, of the Children’s Health Fund (CHF), a philanthropic initiative created to develop health care programs in some of the nation’s most medically underserved communities. CHF programs are now active in 25 urban and rural communities around the U.S. providing quality comprehensive medical care to more than 80,000 children each year. Dr. Redlener holds an M.D. degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine, an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Hunter College of the City University of New York and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Hofstra University.
Dante Salazar Ballesteros is a development professional committed to more broadly building and implementing evidence on climate adaptation, food security, and social vulnerability. His work focuses on translating technical knowledge into public action by providing tools to guide decision-making processes at different program and policy design stages. He has held positions in the public and non-profit sectors, mostly supporting fieldwork operations, program evaluation, and research projects. He is interested in building innovative, more secure paths to development while exploring the intersection of climate services, social inclusion, and food systems.
Antonia Samur is a Senior Staff Associate I. Her role at NCDP includes conducting research and managing initiatives to support disaster planning and community resilience. Antonia currently manages a three-year capacity-building initiative for the child-care sector in Puerto Rico, aiming to enhance institutional preparedness to meet the needs of children in disasters. Under this initiative, she led the development of a training curriculum and delivered training. She also teaches about community engagement in disaster management in the MA in Climate and Society at the Columbia Climate School.
Before NCDP, Antonia worked for the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), where she led a global sustainable development education program, and for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), where she conducted research and policy analysis on social and economic development issues, including childhood poverty and sustainable development in Latin America.
She holds a dual Master’s degree in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University and the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Chile.
Antonia is keenly interested in climate change adaptation, community engagement, participatory planning and public policy, applied research, and education.
Jie (Jolin) Shen is a part-time Senior Project Coordinator at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), assisting with instructional design. Previously, she worked as a graduate student, supporting marketing and communication outreach for NCDP.
She recently graduated with a Master of Arts in Communication and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Jolin also holds a B.A. in Communication and Cinema and Media Studies from the University of Washington, Seattle. She is interested in studying the role of communication technologies in education and has worked for various companies in marketing, public relations, and communications.
Jonathan has over fifteen years of experience in qualitative and quantitative research with significant emphasis on disaster field research and study design, implementation, management, and data architecture and analysis. He contributes to a broad multi-method disaster research portfolio, including natural hazards mapping, rural preparedness, mental health and psychosocial support, community coalition building, and child-focused community resilience. He also has significant experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and their use in disaster preparedness and recovery, evaluating the unanticipated consequences of pandemic flu, determining racially and ethnically appropriate emergency messaging, and analyzing the long-term disaster resiliency and recovery issues of Hurricane Katrina, Superstorm Sandy, and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. He holds a master’s degree in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, where he is currently pursuing a doctorate of public health in Leadership in Global Health and Humanitarian Systems.
Hope Sutherland (they/them) is a Project Coordinator at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, where they facilitate educational courses on resilience themes. They hold an MA in ‘Climate and Society’ from Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, focusing on climate science, strategic communications, and sustainable development.
Hope is especially interested in climate resilience measures that center on human and environmental health. They believe that proactive hazard mitigation is the perfect opportunity to engage communities in creating more livable, sustainable, and intentional spaces.
Charly Vergara Benjumea is a Business Manager at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), where she supports the Director of Operations with day-to-day financial accounting and office operations for the Center. She has a bachelor’s degree and Latin American and Latino Studies from William Paterson University. Her prior experience includes a Sr. Legal Coordinator position at Unilever.
Alex Yixuan Xu is a part-time Senior Project Coordinator at NCDP, assisting with designing learning experiences for FEMA training projects. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Design and Development of Digital Games for learning at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Alex holds a B.S. in Integrated Digital Media from New York University and is interested in designing accessible learning experiences enabled by educational technology.
Amy Campbell is a Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia Climate School. She is pursuing a Master in Climate Policy (MA Climate and Society) on a Fulbright scholarship, specializing in Climate Disaster Preparedness. Her work centers around policy development for non-linear cascading climate risk (i.e., tipping points) and mobilizing adaptation finance for climate-vulnerable countries. She was previously on the UK Government’s Fast Stream policy graduate scheme and was then a UNFCCC Negotiator for the UK. Her previous projects in the UK government included developing the first climate and development profession for policy professionals, available to all UK civil servants.
Liliana Funes is working on operations for training programs at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. She is currently pursuing both a Bachelor of Arts in Climate Systems and Sustainable Development at Columbia College. Her main interests include environmental justice and equity in relation to natural disaster prevention and recovery.
Wanyi Huo works at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), assisting with data management and analysis. She earned her B.S. in Mathematics and B.A. in Data Analytics from Denison University and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Learning Analytics at Teachers College, Columbia University. Wanyi is passionate about using data analytics to improve learning outcomes.
Kainaat Jah is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Education and Training division at NCDP, where she assists with cross-team coordination, grant proposals and Climate School special projects. She has a BSc in Political Science from the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan. Currently, Kainaat is pursuing an M.A. in Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
George Johnson is a Graduate Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), where he supports research related to the impacts of tropical cyclones and aboveground storage tank spills on health outcomes. With a B.A. in Public Health from the University of Washington, he is now pursuing his Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and is deeply interested in disaster preparedness and emergency response, WASH, and biosecurity.
Devshri Lala is a Graduate Summer Research Intern at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), where she supports the Rockefeller Foundation project on developing an index to support concessional financing for countries for climate adaptation. With a B.Sc. in Cell Biology, she is pursuing a Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Devshri is interested in creating mechanisms to better inform the need for and value of investments in disaster resilience efforts in the context of climate change, with a special focus on small island nations.
Rey Lautenschlager is working on curriculum development at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and is currently a Master’s student at Columbia Climate School studying Climate change and Society. Previously, Rey worked for the American Red Cross Southern California Region on the disaster cycle services team, responding to large and small-scale incidents and managing the volunteer workforce. Rey graduated from the University of California San Diego with degrees in Neurobiology and Global Health and a minor in Climate Change Studies.
Emily Padilla-Chicas is a Graduate Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). Within NCDP, she dedicates her efforts to the Resilient Children, Resilient Communities initiative, which aims to equip Puerto Rican communities with effective disaster planning strategies, particularly tailored to safeguard children.
With a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and currently pursuing a Master of Science in Urban Planning at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Emily’s academic journey has been guided by her commitment to bridging the gap between design and policy in the context of sustainability. Her research explores transatlantic urban policy practices, emphasizing the integration of climate change mitigation strategies into urban planning frameworks.
Emily is committed to translating her academic research into practical solutions that benefit communities. With a focus on inclusivity and engaging stakeholders, she aims to develop resilient communities capable of addressing the challenges posed by climate change.
Isabella Pereira is pursuing a Master’s in International Affairs (MIA) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), concentrating on Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy. She is a fellow in the International Fellows Program and a scholar of the Lemann Foundation. Isabella earned her degree in International Relations from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF). She specialized in Politics and Society at the Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP-UERJ), where she researched climate migration in Brazil. She was also a researcher at the South American Political Observatory, monitoring Colombia’s foreign policy for the region. Her research interests include migratory movements, climate change, and gender issues.
Rosie Semlyen is a Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and a graduate student at Columbia Climate School, focusing on social vulnerability and disaster risk. Originally from York, UK, she holds a BA in Social Sciences from Durham University and studied abroad at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She has also worked in Paris, France. With extensive experience as a social movement organizer, her research explores disaster risk management, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and environmental justice.
Renge Shirai is a Student Casual project generalist in the education and training Team assisting various projects related to community resiliency at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. She is a senior at Barnard College majoring in Environment and Sustainability, minoring in Science and Public Policy, where she is conducting a comparative study of flood resiliency of the underground transit systems of New York City and Tokyo.
William Stein is a Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and a graduate student at Columbia Climate School, pursuing a specialization in Disaster Risk Management. Born and raised in New York, he holds a BA in Political Science and Entrepreneurship from Washington University in St. Louis and studied abroad at the Danish Institute in Copenhagen. He has worked in energy efficiency, distributed energy resources, and grid resilience, holding roles at Google, Carbon Lighthouse, and WeaveGrid.
Anuka Upadhye is a Graduate Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). She supports the work of the Columbia World Project in Chile by conducting research on the country’s climate change adaptation plans and strategies for implementing the project.
Anuka received a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from George Washington University and is pursuing an MA in Climate and Society at the Climate School. During her undergraduate studies, she worked at the federal climate policy level, supporting the Inflation Reduction Act rollout and Tribal Conservation Policy. She spent the last year in India on a Fulbright Scholarship, conducting adaptation and wellbeing research on coastal fishing communities on India’s West Coast.
Anuka’s academic focus centers around water-related climate hazards, gender and intersectionality mainstreaming in disaster preparedness programs, and data visualization.
Kayana Waller is a Graduate Research Assistant at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP). She earned her BFA in Filmmaking from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and is currently pursuing an MA in Instructional Technology and Media at Teachers College, Columbia University. She specializes in video production and instructional media.
