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The author is Sonja D. Schmid, an associate professor at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology in Society. She specializes in STS (science, tech, and society) analysis, nuclear industries, and energy policies. In respect to emergency response, Schmid is able to use her knowledge of previous disasters, current energy technologies, and societal influences to address what we need nationally/ internationally for how we should respond to emergencies. The ability to identify the multifaceted levels of what causes disasters is important to properly responding to them- by changing technologies, training and education of communities, and changing energy policies to avoid and handle more disaster.

Publications relevant to the DSTS Network: "Evacuation from a nuclear disaster" (http://www.jstor.org/stable/214548?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents), "A comparative institutional analysis of the Fukushima nuclear disaster: Lessons and policy implications" (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512009433)

Research focusing on nuclear waste management, developments for safer nuclear energy and studies of the nuclear arms race are also relevant to DSTS Network.

There are four regions of microbial threats that the paper focuses on: emerging infectious disease; bioterrorism; life sciences; and food safety.

Huge increases on spending in the US on biodefense from millions to billions of dollars

Very general emergency response plans have weaknesses in that they are so quickly applied to any situation without considering what a specific region needs, has, or lacks.

1. USAID and their contributions to Haiti

2. The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and their impact

3. The United Nations and if they've been sued by Haiti for cholera epidemic

The real threats of air quality were covered up due to politics and other reasons, wanting to get america back to work. Instead, the reports were edited and people were sent back into the dirty air to clean up the scene or back to office jobs in the area, with contaminated air surrounding everything. Decontanimation efforts did not start until very late in the process. Bush did not wear a mask and the workers were told they didn't need to, so they didn't. As a result, there were severe health problems afterwards.

The report implies that technical professionals have to be more careful when responding to large scale disasters; staff responding to emergencies need to have more training for the many internal challenges that would lmit care and assistance to victims. MSF discussed how they had limited man power, labs, and resources.

Interviews were conducted with inmates and politicians.

Disaster investigations look at the emergency response that followed the incident, either the timing or actions taken to save human lives. There's more about the investigations calling for improved emergency preparedness; policies and technology development to prevent disasters such as the Hague Street Explosion (1850) which involved a faulty boiler (and other factors) and the Iroquois theater fire (1903) which led to changed theater building policies. 

It was created to further outline the uses and resposibilities of medicaid, specifically with IMDs. It places more responsibility on the states for middle-aged people in need of this type of care, rather than the federal government. These changes and specifications occurred throughout the 1970's and 80's, when mental health was becoming more of an understood issue, and treatment of those with mental diseases was being improved.