Lucia

Velotti

Lucia Velotti, PhD, is an associate professor and the director of the M.S in Emergency Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is also an affiliated research faculty of The Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies (RaCERS). Dr. Velotti holds two doctoral degrees: a PhD from the University of Salerno, Italy, where she researched network performance during the Neapolitan waste management crisis, and a PhD from the University of Delaware, where she focused on accountability for adopting vertical evacuation strategies in natural hazard mitigation plans. While at Delaware, she was a research assistant at the Disaster Research Center (DRC). Dr. Velotti’s interdisciplinary research covers Spontaneous Volunteer Management Systems (SVMs), first responders' technology acceptability, risk communication, decision-making processes, vertical evacuation, disaster subcultures, network governance, and service-learning. She co-edited the first book on service-learning for disaster resilience and is passionate about integrating this pedagogy into emergency management education. She is co-chair of the International Research Society Public Management (IRSPM) panel on Emergency Services and collaborates with interdisciplinary research groups funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Converge COVID-19 framework. She also co-led the FEMA Special Interest Groups (SIG) on Research and Theory and was part of the Netherlands-United States Water Crisis Research Network (NUWCReN). Dr. Velotti has conducted quick-response fieldwork following major disasters, including the 2008 waste management crisis in Italy, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Tohoku tsunami in Japan, and the 2013 Moore tornadoes, Hurricane Florence (2018), and the 2019 Alabama tornadoes in the U.S. Her work is supported by grants from institutions such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DRPI) in Japan.

Dr. Velotti proactively works with non profit organizations working in the field of emergency management as well as public and private organizations such as the World Cares Center, The Salvation Army. She also served on the founding advisory board of the Collaborative Disaster Volunteer Credential (CDVC)—a training initiative facilitated by the World Cares Center that offers structured training for disaster volunteers. The training covers foundational topics like disaster management, physical safety, first aid, CPR, flood response, food distribution, emotional response, muck-and-gut operations and leadership competencies, including ICS application, volunteer team management, resilience building, and safety planning. The goal of the initiative is to standardize volunteer training across grassroots organizations, elevate safety practices, harmonize response efforts, and reduce responder injuries.