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I hope to be involved in projects that aim to gather scientific evidence to inform environmental decision making and advocate for greater equity and justice in environmental governance. Through this work, I hope to learn the skills needed to engage in community based research and leverage community knowledge as expert knowledge. In my department, things are often siloed and issues are only seen through one perspective. I really want to gain more experience in collaborating with a wide array of stakeholders to come up with approaches to mitigate the environmental injustices experienced in under-resourced communities.

"In any number of disaster over the past two centuries, the "disaster investigation," far from proving itself the dispassionate, scientific verdict on causality and blame, actually emerges as hard-fought honest is to define the moment in politics and society, in technology and culture."

"history shows that, with time, a given community of engineers and scientists has generally proven able to explain the technical particulars of a structural collapse."

"By reviewing the history of disaster investigations in the US, we therefore gain a broader context for understanding the early pitfalls and the future prospects for the World Trade Center investigation,"

I uploaded this artifact because I believe that reparing Newark’s infrastructure is very important, especially since a lot of it’s economy relies on it. Without the repairs, it would lead to bigger problems such as increasing the cost of maintenance for its residents and the companies that use it daily. This decision made me realize that although Newark is struggling in bringing its economy back, its politicians know that maintaining it’s road is the foundation towards recovering from the recession.

I would say that a situation where this site would be difficult to work with would be in an urgent, or time sensitive situation. Let's say during a situation where quick medical care is needed, this site would be difficult to work with and not a good source of information during that time. Yet in most situations and settings this would prove to be a good source of data. 

The DRLA works to provide resilience to communities that have been impacted by a disaster according to their mission statement. They do so through leadership, humanitarianism, education and research. They work to increase leadership in these areas and help identify any weaknesses and vulnerabilities like social inequality and poverty. This program prides itself on its unique focus on leadership and providing programs in increasing resilience and leadership development in areas that have been effected. 

I further researched governmental policies on natural disasters as well as the agencies that were frequently discussed in the article such as FEMA. I also researched the general current state of New Orleans today in comparison to pre Hurricane and post Hurricane (within the first few years) conditions and then compared it with today. I also researched any forms of direct emergency response that occurred during the hurricane and after out of interest on the topic. 

The bibliography shows that there was an extensive amount of research done and that this article truly doesn't encompass most of the findings on this topic. There are studies dated back to the 40s as well as published by world renown experts on the study of disaster and its effects on mental health. There is also a great array of different types of publication types as well. The bibliography clearly shows an intense amount of work that went into putting this research article together.