Monica Schoch-Spana, PhD

Dr. Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist, is a Senior Scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Areas of expertise include community resilience to disaster, public engagement in policymaking, crisis and risk communication, and public health emergency preparedness. Her principal goal is to work to influence policy and practice in ways that reduce human suffering and social disruption in the case of epidemics and disaster. To that end, she has sought to: • Reframe the management of public health emergencies to surpass strictly technical and biomedical matters and to include social, civic, and ethical-moral dimensions • Conduct and translate research that has real-world implications for strengthening disaster readiness, response, and recovery as well as community resilience • Inform emergency planning and operations to be behaviorally realistic and mindful of the power of citizens and civil society to help manage extreme events Since 1998, Dr. Schoch-Spana has briefed federal, state, and local officials, as well as medical, public health, and public safety professionals, on critical issues in health security. National advisory roles include serving on the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Resilient America Roundtable of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), and the NASEM Standing Committee on Medical and Public Health Research during Large-Scale Emergency Events.