Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement

Enhancing Access to Emergency Management Efforts: Exposing Disparities, Detecting Needs, and Safeguarding Infrastructure

By Christin Salley

Advisor:

Dr. John E. Taylor (CEE)

Committee Members:  Dr. Neda Mohammadi (CEE), Dr. Joe F. Bozeman III (CEE), Dr. Iris Tien (CEE), Dr. Allen Hyde (HSOC)

Date and Time:  Month, day, year.  July 24th, 2023 at 1:30 pm (ET)

Location: : (Hybrid) Mason 3132 and Zoom https://gatech.zoom.us/j/99874639031?pwd=clM1b0lxTGJKNkpid0YwTmluTE5zdz09

Natural disasters disrupt various systems and essential services. This leads to vulnerabilities in communities and critical
infrastructure that affect millions of people annually and can cause extensive societal damage. There are, however, measures
that can be taken to plan for and alleviate the effects of these emergency events. Emergency management is a cyclical process
encompassing mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, where actions in each phase can significantly affect the
others. Natural disasters require rapid response and adequate assistance to affected communities to alleviate their impacts.
Effective execution of the response phase relies on real-time situational awareness and decision-making by emergency
management personnel and stakeholders. Marginalized populations, however, have a long-standing history of experiencing
inequalities in emergency management as it pertains to aspects such as distribution of aid, procedural fairness, and longitudinal
community impacts. More specifically, there are multifaceted issues that impede equitable response efforts. In this dissertation, I
outline and examine three particular issues within emergency response systems to enhance accessibility for those experiencing
crisis events such as natural disasters.
The first study investigates disparities within the emergency response system of Emergency Medical Services and its response
time to incidents, aiming to reveal that despite the system's design for standardized caller experience, inequalities persist based
on location within the same dispatch system and zoning coverage. The second study assesses community needs in disasters
through improving emergency management personnel's ability to effectively locate and promptly delineate actionable insights via
social media. It also focuses on mitigating bias in machine learning models that leverage this data, aiming to achieve further
evidence on location and context of emergency events. The third study explores the imminent threat of cyber-attacks on critical
infrastructure (i.e., power, water, transportation, energy, etc.) during natural disasters, analyzing potential attack paths an
adversary can execute to cause data breaches and infiltration of emergency management systems. This research is at the
intersection of analytics, infrastructure systems, and public health, further fostering the advancement of emergency
management decision-making processes and equitable actions. This dissertation contributes to the ongoing efforts to address
barriers faced during emergency response, developing proactive measures to propel the achievement of community resilience
through accessibility to basic human needs during emergencies for all populations.