Project personnel

 

Alka Sapat (PI) is the Director at the School of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University. Her expertise encompasses disaster management, public policy processes, vulnerability and resilience assessment, and methodology. She was a research fellow with the National Science Foundation's "Next Generation of Hazards Researchers" program and has been involved in a number of initiatives including NSF and DHS funded projects on building code regulations, disaster-induced population displacement, post-disaster housing, the role of the Haitian diaspora and NGOs in disaster recovery, port recovery, and critical infrastructure resilience. Her work has been published in the Natural Hazards Review, Public Administration Review, the American Review of Public Administration, Risk Analysis, Natural Hazards, the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, and other scholarly venues. Her teaching interests include disaster management and homeland security, disaster planning and public policy, research methods, and statistical analysis. She serves on the Florida State Disaster Housing Task Force and the Governor's Hurricane Conference committee, along with serving on local committees on post-disaster housing initiatives. She is the coauthor of the 2014 book Displaced by Disasters: Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World, and co-editor of the 2017 book Coming Home after Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery.

 

 

Diana Mitsova (Co-PI) is the John DeGrove Eminent Scholar Chair in Growth Management and Development, Director of the Visual Planning Technology Lab, and Associate Professor in the School of Urbana and Regional Planning at Florida Atlantic University, Her research focuses on the use of geographic information systems, and spatial and statistical analysis to understand the interactions between the built and natural environments and inform sustainable urban planning and environmental practices. She has been funded by the National Science Foundation (CMMI #1541089, #2028968), Federal Emergency Management Agency/ Florida Department of Emergency Management, the Florida Sea Grant, The Nature Conservancy, USGS, the Kresge Foundation, the National Park Service, and Collaborative Sciences Center on Road Safety (CSCRS) (National UTC). Her early publications contributed towards the understanding of historical and projected patterns of urban growth, open space conservation, and focused on environmental planning and modeling using geographic information systems and interactive computer simulation. Her NSF-funded research contributed to the development of a computational platform for probabilistic assessment of infrastructure interdependencies during extreme events to advance knowledge of highly complex behaviors of interdependent infrastructure systems and their resilience. Her research has also focused on topics related to sea level rise vulnerability, climate adaptation and mitigation planning, shoreline stabilization, and health effects of climate change. She is the lead author of a book titled Geospatial Applications for Climate Adaptation Planning (2019, Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group). The book (co-authored with Dr. Ann-Margaret Esnard) examines concepts related to climate adaptation planning, the fundamentals of using geospatial technologies in climate vulnerability assessments, and the formulation of mitigation and adaptation strategies. The book presents case studies as well as many examples from a diverse international group of scholars and entities in the public and private sectors.

 

 

Ann-Margaret Esnard is a Distinguished University Professor of Public Management and Policy, and the Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. Her expertise encompasses urban planning, disaster planning, vulnerability assessment, and GIS/spatial analysis. She has been involved in a number of research initiatives, including NSF funded projects on topics of population displacement from catastrophic disasters, school recovery after disasters, long-term recovery, and community resilience. In addition to She is the coauthor of the 2014 book, Displaced by Disasters: Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World, co-editor of the 2017 book Coming Home after Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery, and co-author of the 2019 book Geospatial Applications for Climate Adaptation Planning. Esnard has served on a number of state and national committee including the  Disasters Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences, the Steering Committee for Evaluation of the National Flood Insurance Program, the National Research Council's committee on Private-Public Sector Collaboration to Enhance Community Disaster Resilience, the State of Florida Post-Disaster Redevelopment Planning initiative, and the Committee for Measuring Community Resilience led by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

 

Students

Karen Sweeting is a Ph.D. Candidate, graduate, and research assistant in the School of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Karen holds a Master of Public Administration degree from FAU and received a Bachelor of Science in Administration from Barry University. Karen is passionate about public service and pursues a deeper understanding of the intricate layers of government to enhance her role as a practitioner and scholar. Karen successfully defended her dissertation on August 31, 2020, in which she focused on development of cultural competence as essential for organizations to eradicate institutionalized, systemic, and systematic disparities tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Karen is also interested in social equity, emotions, emotional management, and organizational learning and behavior.

 

Ross Einsteder is a graduate student in his final semester pursuing a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from FAU and works part time for the City of Delray Beach. He assisted the PRAISys project in various capacities with a focus on spatial data analysis. Ross will collaborate with Dr. Mitsova on analyzing the National Geodetic Survey Emergency Response Imagery database of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), LiDAR, NASA Black Marble products to extract nightlight indices, socioeconomic data, and tax appraiser data.

 

Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., is a Professor of Economics and is the founder and Director of the Business and Economics Polling Initiative (BEPI) in the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. The Initiative provides a laboratory for students to learn all aspects of survey research process from data collection up to presentations at professional conferences. In addition, results of the polls are regularly featured in leading media outlets. In 2016, Dr. Escaleras received the FAU National Alumni Association Degree of Difference Award, the FAU Faculty Talon Leadership award and was a finalist for the FAU Distinguished Teacher of the Year award. Dr. Escaleras scholarship focuses on natural disasters, entrepreneurship and political economy and her research has been published in numerous journals, including the Journal of Public Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Public Choice, Economics Letters and Southern Economics Journal.