Welcome from the Editors: Pracademic Affairs, 7th Edition

By
Meghan McPherson
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80

Dear Readers, Colleagues, and Fellow Pracademics,

As we enter this professionally demanding summer that includes the nation’s 250th anniversary and the FIFA tournament, we know that our colleagues in emergency management, homeland security, and homeland defense have a lot of intense work and long nights ahead.

We are thrilled to publish nine new articles to highlight the work in our community.  This issue presents a range of topical contributions spanning a spectrum of topics:

We extend our sincere thanks to our authors, reviewers, and readers for helping sustain this incredible momentum in our 7th edition. We continually invite new submissions from practitioners, academics, and pracademics whose expertise, experiences, and perspectives continue to enrich and strengthen this community.

Remain vigilant, keep learning, and stay connected!

Sincerely,

Prof. Meg McPherson and Dr. Michael Wallace
Co-Editors-In-Chief, Pracademic Affairs
Homeland Security Today

Meghan McPherson
Meghan McPherson
Meghan McPherson is the System Director of Emergency Management Education, Training, and Exercises for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. In this role, Meghan leads the development, planning, and execution of a robust training and exercise program across the health system. McPherson is a seasoned emergency manager with over two decades of experience in the field. Most recently, she served as the Director of Emergency Management for Mount Sinai Queens Hospital on the front lines of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to joining the Mount Sinai Health System, Meghan was Assistant Director of the Center for Health Innovation (CHI) at Adelphi University, where she served as the program coordinator and faculty for emergency management graduate programs. She concentrated her work on community-based social resilience initiatives. Preceding her work at Adelphi, Meghan spent four years as both the Grants Manager and the Energy Assurance Program Manager in the Governor’s Office of Energy and Planning in New Hampshire. While in this position, she supported the State Emergency Operations Center during disasters by ensuring the continuity of the state’s energy supply. She also worked for James Lee Witt Associates in Washington, D.C. and deployed multiple times to Louisiana to support recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Meghan serves on the University of Southern California Emergency Management program faculty, where she also participated in both curriculum and course development and serves on the Bovard College Faculty Council. She previously wrote the curriculum for the MPS in Emergency Management and served as adjunct faculty at Tulane University’s Emergency and Security Studies graduate programs. Meghan is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), Certified National Healthcare Disaster Professional (NHDP-BC), and Certified Healthcare Provider Continuity Professional (CHPCP). She is a member of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security Executive Leaders Program Cohort 2102 and was honored in 2011 as one of New Hampshire’s Top 40 under 40. She was named the recipient of the 2023 David McIntyre Homeland Security Educator Award and the 2025 USC Bovard College Faculty Excellence in Student Mentoring Award. Meghan earned her BA in political science at the University of New Hampshire and her Master of Public Policy (MPP) with a concentration in national security policy from The George Washington University.

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