Danielle Nagele currently serves as an associate program officer in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She works with Resilient America Roundtable members and fellow staff to build community resilience through partnerships, research, and engagement. Before joining the National Academies, Dr. Nagele worked in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She served as a social scientist in the Program Planning and Integration (PPI) office and a risk communication specialist in the National Ocean Service (NOS).

Dr. Nagele received her B.S. in meteorology from Millersville University and her M.S. in atmospheric science from Texas Tech University. In May 2015 she graduated from University of Delaware with a Ph.D. in Disaster Science and Management. Her research focus areas were public response to severe weather warnings and organizational culture among warning system organizations.​

Mary Nelan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Management and Disaster Science at the University of North Texas. She earned her MA in Sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 2011, and in May 2010 she traveled to Haiti to volunteer as a relief worker after the earthquake 4 months earlier. It was this experience that drew her to disaster research and informed her Master’s Thesis on international disaster volunteers. During her Ph.D. studies at the University of Delaware, Mary worked as a Research Assistant at the Disaster Research Center where she was a member of several projects funded by the National Science Foundation. As part of her research, she conducted quick response fieldwork following Hurricane Sandy and the May 2013 Oklahoma tornadoes. Her time at the Disaster Research Center provided experiences and training that she continues to use in her current position.

Mary’s current research focuses on convergence behavior in the response phase of disasters. Her research has addressed international disaster volunteers, and donation behaviors in the United States.

Samantha Penta is an Assistant Professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her B.A. in Sociology and History in 2011, her M.A. in Sociology in 2014, and her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2017, all from the University of Delaware. While at UD, Sam worked as a research assistant at the Disaster Research Center working on projects examining evacuation and preparedness challenges for long-term care facilities, disaster donations behavior, and community recovery and resilience to disasters and epidemics. Sam’s research focuses on health and medical issues in crises, decision-making in preparedness and response, and humanitarian logistics. Her most recent work examines the processes involved in planning and implementing international crisis medical relief efforts, focusing on health and medical responses to the 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. She specializes in qualitative research, and has participated in multiple quick response field research deployments, including to New York City following Superstorm Sandy, the Oklahoma City area following the May 2013 tornadoes, Florida leading up to Tropical Storm Erika, and Nepal after the 2015 earthquake.

Brenda Phillips, Ph.D., is the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Indiana University South Bend, where she will be guest lecturing on gender and disasters in the Women and Gender Studies program, and on socio-behavioral response and recovery in our Natural Disasters course. She is an author of Disaster Recovery, Introduction to Emergency Management, Qualitative Disaster Research and Mennonite Disaster Service. She has co-edited Social Vulnerability to Disasters and Women and Disasters. Her published research, funded by the National Science Foundation, can be found in a variety of journals including the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Disaster Prevention, Disasters, Humanity and Society, the Journal of Emergency Management, Natural Hazards Review, and Environmental Hazards.

Dr. Phillips has been invited to teach, consult, or present in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, India, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Venezuela, Canada, Sweden, and the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Phillips earned the Blanchard Award for excellence in emergency management education and the Myers Award for work on the effects of disasters on women. She was inducted into the International Women’s Hall of Fame for Emergency Management and Homeland Security in 2013.

Lisa Reshaur, Ph.D. is the Senior Director of Microsoft’s Governance, Risk, Continuity and Compliance Program. She coordinates the Company’s Information Risk Management Council, Microsoft’s security governance program. Lisa leads the Company’s Enterprise Business Continuity Management program which includes continuity, recovery and resiliency. She also runs compliance, risk management, risk remediation and privacy for Core Services Engineering. Lisa earned a Ph.D. from the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware where she focused on studying businesses in disasters. Prior to joining Microsoft, Lisa worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers where she spent 14 years working with companies around the world to help them build, improve and sustain risk and compliance programs. Lisa earned a Six Sigma Black Belt, is a Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP) and a Certified Risk Manager (CRM).