Richard Serino and Michelle Pratt

The Honorable Richard Serino is currently a “Distinguished Visiting Fellow” at Harvard University, National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. Mr. Serino was appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s 8th Deputy Administrator in October 2009 and served until 2014. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Administrator, he served as Chief of Boston EMS and Assistant Director of the Boston Public Health Commission. As Chief of Boston EMS, Mr. Serino served as Incident Commander for over 35 mass casualty incidents and for all of Boston’s major planned events. During his time at FEMA, he oversaw 60 disasters from flooding in the Midwest, tornado devastation in Missouri, tsunami destruction, and numerous hurricanes. Mr. Serino was on scene at the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 as the highest-ranking official of DHS. Under Mr. Serino’s leadership, FEMA has started the following initiatives such as FEMA Corps, FEMA Stat, the FEMA Think Tank, a detailed budgetary process, and a Disaster Workforce and Workplace Transformation. || Michelle Pratt is a professional Human Ecologist and current intern to Rich Serino, Distinguished Senior Fellow Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. She is currently a student of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology for Disaster and Emergency Management, and works for the provincial health provider in her home province. Besides being a student, she is also a community volunteer for education projects related to sexual consent and personal safety.