IAEM Learning Center

Marcia Brooks is project director at the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH, and contributes to federal grant projects that make information accessible to people with hearing and vision loss across a variety of media. She leads the Access to Emergency Alerts for People with Disabilities project, funded by the Department of Commerce's Technology Opportunities Program (TOP). Ms. Brooks recently served as a member of the FCC Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee, representing individuals with special needs in the committee's recommendations on technical standards and protocols to facilitate the ability of commercial mobile service providers to voluntarily transmit emergency alerts to their subscribers. She previously led a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to develop PBCore, a shared metadata standard in use around the world, and is now managing a subsequent grant from CPB to advance PBCore outreach, training and use. Ms. Brooks served as a senior strategist at a leading global Internet marketing agency, consulting for clients including America Online and Lockheed Martin. She has held various management positions at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and led the development of e-mail and intranet services for the nation's public television stations. She has also consulted for National Public Radio (NPR), and has participated in diversity initiatives at PBS and WGBH. Ms. Brooks has a B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of Massachusetts.

Brenda D. Phillips, Ph.D. is a Senior Researcher with the Center for the Study of Disasters and Extreme Events and is a Full Professor in the Fire and Emergency Management Program, Department of Political Science, at Oklahoma State University where she teaches courses in emergency management, social vulnerability and community relations. Her work on vulnerable populations has been funded multiple times by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey and others. Dr. Phillips has given invited presentations to the U.S. National Weather Service, the U.S. National Academies of Science, the New Zealand Ministries of Civil Defence and of Health, and the Australian Emergency Management Institute among others. Her work has been published in numerous scholarly journals, refereed proceedings and books and has been posted on the FEMA Higher Education web site.

Edward Tanzman is Co-Director of the Center for Integrated Emergency Preparedness at Argonne National Laboratory, located near Chicago. His work at Argonne focuses on emergency planning and on legal aspects of international arms control regimes. Mr. Tanzman currently manages programs totaling more than $8 million annually, sponsored by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of State, and the Chicago Department of Public Health. His work on emergency preparedness for persons with special needs resulted in development of the Special Population Planner, which is the first GIS application designed to facilitate emergency planning for persons with disabilities, those without vehicles, and latchkey children. He is responsible for a team of 30 planners, lawyers, risk communications specialists, and social scientists, plus various adjunct professionals. Mr. Tanzman’s publications include a book, two software applications, eight peer-reviewed journal articles (six in law journals), more than 20 major reports, 35 conference papers, and numerous lectures and presentations. Examples of his publications can be found at http://www.dis.anl.gov/ep/staff/tanzman.html. Outside of Argonne, Mr. Tanzman co-founded and is Board of Directors Chairperson of a charitable medical clinic specializing in autism-spectrum disorders and learning disabilities. He is an instructor at the University of Chicago Graham School of General Studies. Mr. Tanzman has also served as a Legislative Assistant in the United States Senate and as Counsel to the Palau National Congress in Micronesia. Mr. Tanzman completed his undergraduate work with honors in political science at the University of Chicago, earned a law degree at Georgetown University Law Center, and is a member of the Illinois and District of Columbia bars.