Faculty-Student Research Collaboration

The Institute for Homeland Security and Emergency Management (IHSEM) brings faculty experts and student scholars together to study, test, and advance practices that strengthen community resilience before, during, and after disasters. Our collaborative model integrates applied research, classroom learning, field exercises, and partnerships with public agencies, healthcare systems, and nonprofit organizations.

• Interdisciplinary teams: Faculty lead research clusters that combine emergency management, public health, information systems, criminal justice, and policy.
• Student-centered research: Undergraduate and graduate students serve as research assistants, analysts, simulation controllers, and project coordinators.
• Practice partnerships: Projects are co-designed with emergency managers, hospitals, public health departments, and community stakeholders to ensure real-world impact.
• Hands-on tools: Teams use incident management platforms, GIS and risk modeling tools, survey and evaluation instruments, and exercise design frameworks.

Disaster Telemedicine Planning

• Focus: Providing guidance for the integration of disaster telemedicine into emergency management planning at the local level, specifically targeting rural communities.

Catastrophic Medical Surge in Rural Communities

• Focus: Modeling surge capacity and resource allocation for low-density regions with limited hospital beds and long transport times.

Student WebEOC Disaster Scenario Training and Simulations

• Focus: a comprehensive training program focusing on the proficient utilization of WebEOC and its advanced AI capabilities and building and running immersive incident simulations using WebEOC to train coordination across emergency support functions (ESF).

Hazard & Risk Analysis

• Focus: Identifying multi-hazard exposures (e.g., severe weather, flooding, technological hazards) and community vulnerability.

Get Involved: 

• Students: Join a research team for credit, assistantships, capstones, or internships.
• Faculty: Propose a project, co-advise a student team, or integrate IHSEM simulations into your course.
• Partners: Collaborate on pilots, exercises, or decision-support tools tailored to your mission.