Colten J. Strickland is the COVID-19 Epidemiology and Surveillance Manager for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.  He received his BS in Philosophy with a minor in Peace and Justice Studies from Utah Valley University in 2013, his MPH in Disaster Management from Tulane University in 2015, and his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Delaware in 2022.  Colten was the founding doctoral student of the Epidemiology program at the University of Delaware and first epidemiology student of the DRC.  During his program, Colten responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in his role as the lead COVID-19 Epidemiologist for the Delaware Division of Public Health from 2021-2022 and as a COVID-19 Epidemiologist for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health from 2020-2021.  Prior to the start of his program, Colten was a Public Health Associate (Class of 2016) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was assigned to the Multnomah County Health Department in Portland, Oregon where he worked on childhood immunizations.  Colten has several years of experience working in governmental public health.  His research largely focuses on applied epidemiology, disaster epidemiology, and environmental health.  His dissertation is titled “A Review of COVID-19-Associated Mortality in the City of Philadelphia Over the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.”  Colten is an active and supportive member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Farshad Hesamfar is a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia with expertise in water resources optimization, focusing on integrating Low Impact Development (LID) and Green Infrastructure (GI) to enhance urban flood management systems. He completed his studies in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), titled as the top student of the whole school. During his master’s, he submitted two Q1 journal articles on the evolutionary multi-objective optimization fields and trade-off between different objectives in resource allocation. He is interested in the application of the multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to trade-offs between equity, efficiency, and environmental preservation. His research interests include trade-off analysis, sustainable management, multi-criteria decision-making, and simulation-based multi-objective optimization. His research aims to integrate broader social dimensions, such as stakeholder involvement and equitable access to flood mitigation benefits.

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.

Paige currently serves on the executive leadership team at DEMA. She previously served as a Planning Supervisor for the Natural Hazards section in which managed state disaster recovery and mitigation planning efforts, including the state Public Assistance program, Individual Assistance program, and Long Term Recovery efforts.She has also supervised the Terrorism Preparedness section, during which time she oversaw the strategic purchases of equipment, training, exercises, and programs throughout the state to help reduce risk and increase readiness and resiliency across the state. She has also served as the Exercise Coordinator in the Training & Exercise section, in which she planned and coordinated HSEEP-compliant state-level exercises in support of Homeland Security Grant Program objectives.Finally, Paige serves as a Program Administrator for the DEMA sUAS Program and previously as the Chairwoman of the State UAS Training and Certification Steering Committee. In these roles, she sets training standards and teaches flight courses for public safety agencies throughout Delaware. She is also an instructor of Emergency Management at Delaware Technical & Community College.