Episode Three: Each year natural disasters and hazards around the world claim lives and property, cripple economies, and leave communities vulnerable. Innovative national and international emergency management response plans are needed to prepare for such events. Strategies are critical for health related crises, as well. In the event of a disease outbreak or exposure to harmful biological agents, professionals have little time to mount an adequate response. UNT researchers Armin Mikler, computational epidemiologist in the Computer Science and Engineering, and Sudha Arlikatti, emergency management researcher in the Department of Public Administration, are working to develop new tools and strategies to address these concerns.
Armin Mikler
Armin R. Mikler is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering
with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences. He has established
and is the director of the Center for Computational Epidemiology and Response
Analysis at UNT, and he leads the Computational Epidemiology Research Laboratory.
His research interests include modeling and simulation of infectious disease outbreaks,
population immunity, and the design and analysis of disaster response plans.
Sudha Arlikatti
Sudha Arlikatti is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration
with expertise in sustainable hazard mitigation, risk perceptions, international disaster
response and rebuilding. She is the coordinator of the Emergency Administration and
Planning Program at UNT and member of the research cluster, Hazards and Disaster
Research to Respond to Global Crises, a consortium which works to improve on-the-
ground planning and response in four broad research areas: evacuation planning, risk
modeling and service delivery, humanitarian logistics, and tourism and disaster.
