The Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate, Office of University Programs’ nine Centers of Excellence (COE) will convene in late July for the Centers of Excellence Summit 2019. This year’s event, held at George Mason University’s Arlington, Va., campus, will focus on “Homeland Security Challenges: Evolving Threats and Dynamic Solutions.”
The event includes panels and presentations on Homeland Security topics, including one featuring CRC partners speaking about community engagement. The Summit will also include an Innovation Showcase, a student poster session and a student-focused Grand Challenge event.
Coastal Resilience Center Executive Director Tom Richardson will moderate a panel, “Community Awareness and Engagement,” that includes CRC work to improve community planning for hazard mitigation. It will include researcher Phil Berke and representatives from Norfolk, Va., a community that benefitted from using Berke’s CRC-developed tool, the Planning for Integration Resilience Scorecard (PIRS™).
CRC will also feature PIRS™ and the ADCIRC Prediction System™ in its booth in the Innovation Showcase.
CRC will have several students involved in the event:
- Elizabeth City State University students Jaida Ellis and Genesis McClain will exhibit a poster on their Summer Research Team project,“An Examination of Mental Health Effects of Hurricanes on Vulnerable Populations in Coastal North Carolina and Implications for Resilience.”
- Florida A&M University students Tenesha Washington and Tia Maxwell will exhibit a poster on their Summer Research Team project,“The Place We Call Home: The Risk Perceptions and Place Attachments of Coastal Communities at Risk for Sea Level Rise in North Carolina.”
- Johnson C. Smith University students Braxton Gambrell and William Case will present a poster on “Building TORNADO Resilient Communities.” They and JCSU student Maurice Hanns will also participate in the Grand Challenge event.
Registration is available through July 16, 2019, and additional information for the Summit is available at www.coesummit.org. The event website will be updated with additional details as the date of the event approaches.