Category: Interviews, Podcasts & Videos

Nancy is a student at NYU GPH and was originally a business major but has dedicated a lot of her spare time volunteering and encouraging her family to volunteer. She first started working in the engineering department at Florida Atlantic University and then moved on to become the Associate Vice Provost for Research here at NYU. Her career in research administration supporting faculty and researchers across the disciplines spans 30 years. Nancy works with researchers to develop and submit grant proposals, negotiate the terms and conditions of contracts, ensures investigator and university-wide compliance with regulatory requirements, and facilitates the dissemination of research results, all leading to discoveries and advancements that benefit the scientific community and the public. 

With the progression of the pandemic, she was inspired to take a 3 month accelerated course offered by the Smithtown local fire department to become an EMT. Simultaneously, she came across and became interested in the Advanced Certificate in Public Health Disaster Science, Policy and Practice after repeated reports of the pandemic and climate change have taken light in the news. In this opportunity, she is trying to combine her experience in research and volunteering to be in a better position to improve herself and her own communities’ disaster preparedness and response. She is looking for ways to apply the knowledge she is learning from the various courses into practice. She recounts her first experience with the field when the pandemic first struck, and her department’s Vice Provost was faced with the task of keeping the work going, protecting human and animal subject research, while maintaining the safety of everyone.

Watch the interview here. 

Cindy Martinez writes about the growing field of public health disaster management that demands analytical, critical, and problem-solving skills in its practitioners. According to data from a 2020 FEMA report, there is an increase in diverse emergency management programs, including non-traditional, military, and first-generation groups. This independent study conducts a quantitative study that collects responses from 6 NYU alumni graduates working in positions within the public health disaster preparedness and management field.  The majority of respondents reported that project management is the most important skillset in the field of practice, followed by time management and financial management. Since there is an abundance of disaster events globally, including the concurrent pandemic, Cindy recommends that students interested in the field should hone their skillsets to make them competitive and competent candidates after graduation. 

Read the independent study here, and download the presentation here.  

Cindy Martinez conducted a wonderful interview with Hannah Myers, an Emergency Management Specialist in Texas, on the specialized skills required to be successful in the field of public health disaster management. They discussed the importance of pursuing opportunities to continue learning throughout a professional career and beyond. Hannah gives an example of training “on-the-job” when she learned a new skill set in weather monitoring and learned to use tools and equipment to measure and forecast the weather. Cindy also questions Hannah on how she applied the skills she learned from the courses she took when she was a student at NYU. Hannah reports that risk communication and project management were the most valuable since she uses these skills daily in her job. The emergence of COVID-19 helped create her position and Hannah recognizes that the field of public health disaster management is constantly evolving and will continue to grow.

Read the full interview here.