Dr. Paula R. Buchanan

BIOGRAPHY:

Dr. Paula R. Buchanan is a Lead Instructor at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, supporting the development and efficient delivery of federal training programs on disaster preparedness and community resilience for FEMA. She is also a practitioner‑academic (“pracademic”), socio‑hydrologist, and disaster and emergency management researcher. She researches sustainable drinking water access issues, focusing on the intersections between public health, risk and science communication, sociology, and emergency management.

As a socio-hydrologist, her research focuses on how people interact with drinking water systems and human behavior’s impact on these systems that support drinking water to sustain life. A central question of Dr. Buchanan’s research is the extent to which socio-technical systems function as a communication channel to provide populations with accurate information to mitigate impacts associated with or exacerbated by water‑based disasters. She is interested in using mixed methods to better understand the multi-faceted nature of her interdisciplinary research interests. As a self‑proclaimed data nerd, Dr. Buchanan is also passionate about using data science, information technology, and data visualizations as tools to more effectively communicate with targeted audiences.