​Zackery White is a Ph.D. student in the Disaster Science and Management program. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He later received his MPH from Columbia University after working as an in-country health systems consultant with the Ghana Health Service, evaluating Ghana’s community-based emergency referral system. Zack currently holds a Teaching Assistantship in the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition and a Research Staff Assistant position at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. There he focuses on decision support tool development and the role of employee absenteeism in the continuity of business operations for utility services during the COVID-19 pandemic. His academic interests include, but surely not limited to, forced migration, household preparedness, exposure operationalization, disaster epidemiology.