Rabbi Daniel Fink leads Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel, a Reform congregation in Boise, Idaho. He is an expert on Jewish environmentalism.

Beverly Wright is founder and director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University in New Orleans. She is co-author of a report, sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation and released in May 2006, which concluded that minorities and low-income residents have recovered more slowly after Katrina, in part because they have less […]

Manuel Sprung, assistant professor of psychology with a focus on social-cognitive development in children. He was one of the researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast in Long Beach, Miss., who studied how Katrina has affected children’s thinking – including the impact of intrusive thoughts about the storm on their concentration levels.

Ronald C. Kessler is a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He directs a project called the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group Initiative, which is studying the psychological impact of Katrina on survivors of the storm.

Mira Amiras is a professor of humanities at San José State University in California. She teaches courses in Judaism, Zionism and the state and Jewish mysticism, among others.

Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history and director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. He is the author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (William Morrow, 2006), which tells the story of the great storm through the eyes of its survivors and examines the failures […]

The American Red Cross is teaming with African American religious and civic groups to train volunteers who will be ready to help when future disasters occur. The Red Cross has sent trainers to work with groups from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the NAACP.

Norbert Samuelson is a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he is an expert in Jewish philosophy and thought.

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster helps voluntary organizations work together to train and plan for disaster response. NVOAD, based in Alexandria, Virginia, also helps build connections between the voluntary groups and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.