Dr. Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist, is a Senior Associate with the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases. She also serves on the faculty and steering committee for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a university-based center of excellence supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Since 1998, Schoch-Spana has briefed numerous federal, state, and local officials, as well as medical, public health, and public safety professionals on critical issues in biosecurity and public health emergency preparedness. In particular, she has led research, education and advocacy efforts to encourage greater consideration by authorities of the public’s key contributions to the management of epidemics, bioattacks, and other health disasters. National advisory roles include serving on the Steering Committee of the Disaster Roundtable of the National Research Council (NRC), the Institute of Medicine Standing Committee on Medical Readiness, and the NRC Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters.

Schoch-Spana currently directs the Rad Resilient City Initiative (www.radresilientcity.org), a community preparedness and education effort to save tens of thousands of lives following a nuclear terrorist attack, by enabling citizens to reduce their exposure to radioactive fallout. In 2009, she organized the national conference Resilient American Communities: Progress in Policy and Practice, and chaired the Resilience Research Work Group. In 2006, she oversaw the Working Group on Citizen Engagement in Health Emergency Planning, and was the principal organizer for the U.S.-Canada summit on Disease, Disaster & Democracy – The Public’s Stake in Health Emergency Planning.

In 2003, Dr. Schoch-Spana helped establish the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC; prior to that she worked at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies starting in 1998. She received her PhD in cultural anthropology from Johns Hopkins University (1998) and BA from Bryn Mawr College (1986).