Contributions: Michael Arad
Michael Arad, B.A., M.Arch., AIA, is best known for his design for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site, titled “Reflecting Absence,” which was selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation from among more than 5,000 entries submitted in an international competition held in 2003. Arad joined the New York firm of Handel Architects as a partner in April 2004, where he worked on realizing the Memorial design as a member of the firm. A native of Israel, Arad was raised there, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Mexico. He came to the United States and earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1994 and M.Arch. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999. In 2006, he was one of six recipients of the Young Architects Award of the American Institute of Architects. In 2012, he was awarded the AIA Presidential Citation for his work on the National September 11 Memorial.
Contributions: Michael Crane
Michael Crane, M.D., M.P.H., is medical director of the Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health, the Mount Sinai World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence, and associate professor of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is an expert on the physical and mental health consequences of large-scale disasters experienced by rescue and recovery workers including responders who worked at the World Trade Center disaster site following the attacks of September 11, 2001. An advocate of worker safety and health, Dr. Crane has conducted extensive research on the health effects of exposures to workplace hazards and environmental toxins, as well as on prevention and control strategies to protect worker health.
Contributions: Brian Davis
Brian R. Davis, M.A., M.Phil., is a doctoral candidate in Social/Personality Psychology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), and a Fulbright Dissertation Research Fellow to Osaka Prefecture University, Japan (2016–17). He currently serves as graduate student board member at the LGBT Social Science & Public Policy Center at Roosevelt House, Hunter College (CUNY), as well as liaison to Japan for the International Psychology Network for LGBTI Issues (IPsyNet). His mixed qualitative and quantitative methods research focuses on sexual identity development, adolescent sexuality, minority stress, and policy applications. His dissertation project focuses on exploring the culturally contingent beliefs about male sexuality in the United States and Japan.
Contributions: Ariel Durosky
Ariel Durosky, B.A., is the research coordinator of the Trauma and PTSD program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center. She earned a B.A. in psychology from Emmanuel College and previously conducted research related to sex differences in leadership styles.
Contributions: Kimberly Flynn
Kimberly Flynn, B.A., is the cofounder and director of 9/11 Environmental Action, a key advocacy organization that formed in 2002 as a community- based coalition to call attention to the environmental health risks of the WTC disaster and to advocate for a proper cleanup. The organization aims to ensure that residents, workers and students (a.k.a. “survivors”) who were affected physically or emotionally by the WTC disaster get the health care they need and deserve. For more than five years, she has been the chair of the Survivors Steering Committee, an advisory body whose mission is to provide input from the affected community to the World Trade Center Health Program’s Survivor Program. She has served on numerous 9/11 health- related committees, including the WTC Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee, where she participated in the deliberation resulting in a recommendation that the WTCHP add more than 50 cancers to the list of WTC conditions.
Contributions: Norman Groner
Norman Groner, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, affiliated with the Department of Security, Fire and Emergency Management. He has taught a wide variety of courses related to security, emergency management, fire safety, and research methods. He earned his doctorate in research psychology from the University of Washington. His scholarly writing and research concerns the cognitive and organizational factors related to fire safety, security, and emergency planning. Groner has investigated human behavior during fires, conducted studies of organizational responses during disasters, analyzed the feasibility of using building refuge areas and fire- safe elevators, worked on various task forces and code writing committees, and advised the National Institute of Standards and Technology on data collection and analysis for its investigation of the evacuations of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Contributions: Lait Helpman
Liat Helpman, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow. She is a member of the Trauma and PTSD program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center. She is also a part of the Columbia Global Mental Health team, working to improve access to evidence- based interventions among internally displaced women in Colombia. Dr. Helpman is investigating biomarkers of stress and translating research into practical applications. She has expertise in clinical practice with adults and children with PTSD and other clinical problems.
Contributions: Anne Hilburn
Anne Hilburn, M.A., is a research assistant with the Trauma and PTSD Program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center.
Contributions: Charles Jennings
Charles Jennings, Ph.D., FIFireE, CFO, is a public safety academic and researcher, and practitioner. He is inaugural director of the Christian Regenhard Center for Emergency Response Studies (RaCERS) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he is also an associate professor in the Department of Security, Fire, and Emergency Management. He has an extensive background as a public safety practitioner and researcher.
Contributions: Daniel Libeskind
Contributions: Ari Lowell
Ari Lowell, Ph.D., is associate director of the Columbia Veterans Research Center, a part of the Trauma and PTSD Program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center. He has a background in treating PTSD, depression, anxiety, and traumatic brain injury. He completed his clinical internship at the VA NJ Health Care System, where he served veterans suffering from the effects of combat- related trauma, military sexual trauma, and other difficulties. Lowell is experienced in both individual and group psychotherapy. He is a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces.
Contributions: Roberto Lucchini
Roberto Lucchini, M.D., has since 2012 been director of the Division of Occupational Medicine, professor of medicine, director of the World Trade Center, Data Center, and director of NIOSH Education and Research Center for New York and New Jersey. He is also associate professor at the University of Brescia, Italy, Division of Occupational Medicine. He is committed to sharing his knowledge internationally and promoting the center’s research on the assessment of health outcomes among the World Trade Center responders who were exposed to a variety of chemical hazards and psychological trauma at Ground Zero.
Contributions: Guillermina Mejia
Guillermina Mejia, M.P.H., was the director of the Safety and Health Department of District Council 37, AFSCME and an experienced Occupational Safety and Health Specialist. District Council 37 is a labor organization that represents city, state, and cultural workers. Many of its members performed a variety of tasks at Ground Zero, the surrounding areas, and the landfill. Since 9/11, Ms. Mejia has worked on getting New York City to protect District Council 37’s members from the safety and health hazards that resulted from 9/11, and she has advocated for medical support for those injured and exposed to toxic environments. Ms. Mejia was a member of the WTC HP Responder Steering Committee and served on the WTC Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee.
Contributions: Hirofumi Minami
Hirofumi Minami, Ph.D., is professor of environmental psychology in the Department of Urban Design and Disaster Management at the Faculty of Human- Environment Studies of Kyushu University, Japan. He specializes in developmental and environmental psychology, urban design, and cultural psychology. His research topics include childhood memories of significant places, urban renewal and the elderly, cultural assumptions underlying environmental concepts, social ecological studies of urban life in Asian cities, ethnographic and field research methods, and Psychoanalysis of Cities. He cofounded the Japanese Society of Qualitative Psychology, chaired the Man- Environment Research Association, and was dean of the Faculty of Education of Kyushu University.
Contributions: Jacqueline Moline
Jacqueline Moline, M.D., M.Sc., is an occupational medicine specialist and has published widely on the physical and mental health effects of World Trade Center exposure observed within the Mount Sinai Clinical Program. Her involvement in medical monitoring and treatment of WTC responders began in 2002, when she became the Medical Core Director of the WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. She joined North Shore in April 2010 as vice president of population health and was the founding chair of population health for the new Hofstra School of Medicine. Dr. Moline works with the health system leadership to develop initiatives aimed at promoting and engaging health and wellness for North Shore- LIJ’s workforce as well as community at large. She is also developing a population health and epidemiology research program. Dr. Moline’s research in the past has focused on the health effects of lead exposure.
Contributions: Yuval Neria
Yuval Neria, Ph.D., is professor of medical psychology at the Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center, and Director of Trauma and PTSD at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. His research ranges from studying the mental health consequences of high impact trauma including combat, captivity, terrorism and disasters, examination of determinants of resilience and effective functioning, to translational research aiming to identify underlying neural and behavioral mechanisms of trauma related psychopathology and development of neuroscience- informed treatments.
Contributions: Cristina Onea
Cristina Onea, M.A., is a Ph.D. student in the Critical Social and Personality Psychology program at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She draws upon her background as a Romanian immigrant for inspiration in her research. Cristina is currently studying surveillance as well as transgenerational trauma as a result of mass human rights violations. She is interested in the effects of surveillance on social relationships, trust, and the physical and mental well- being of the individual.
Contributions: Susan Opotow
Susan Opotow is a Professor at the City University of New York, where she is a core faculty member of sociology at John Jay College and psychology at the Graduate Center.
Contributions: David Prezant
David Prezant, M.D., is the Chief Medical Officer for the Fire Department of the City of New York FDNY), a special advisor to the Fire Commissioner on health policy, and codirector of the FDNY World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program. He is also professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. On 9/11, Dr. Prezant responded to the World Trade Center and was present during the collapse and its aftermath. Since that day, he has worked to initiate a multimillion- dollar medical monitoring and treatment program for FDNY firefighters funded by FDNY, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). His major research interest is in determining the mechanisms responsible for accelerated decline in longitudinal pulmonary function and/or airway hyperreactivity in firefighters after WTC exposure. Other interests are in determining the mechanisms responsible for the increased incidence of sarcoidosis in firefighters after WTC exposure.
Contributions: Karyna Pryiomka
Karyna Pryiomka is a doctoral candidate in the Critical Social/Personality Psychology Ph.D. program and has earned the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Graduate Certificate at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Drawing on the history of psychology and the philosophy of science, Karyna’s research interests include the relationship between psychological assessments and education policy, validity theory, and the qualitative/quantitative divide in social science research. Her work on digital pedagogy has appeared in the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (2017), and her theoretical work has been published in the Moscow State Herald (2015). She brings these interests and a blend of critical and digital pedagogies into her teaching of psychology and statistical methods courses at the City University of New York.
Contributions: Joan Reibman
Joan Reibman, M.D., is the medical director of the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center and director of the New York University/Bellevue Asthma Clinic, as well as professor in the Department of Medicine and Environmental Medicine at New York University. In 1991, she began the Bellevue Hospital Asthma program under a New York grant. She uses the research in both research centers to promote the study of airway disease and environmental interactions. Under Dr. Reibman’s supervision, these labs were the first to study the environmental impact of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on the respiratory health of the surrounding community.
Contributions: Diala Shamas
Diala Shamas is a human rights attorney whose practice and writing focus on civil liberties, law enforcement accountability, and lawyering in support of communities impacted by policies pursued under the banner of national security. She is a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, and has taught at Stanford Law School and at CUNY School of Law.
Contributions: Zachary Baron Shemtob
Zachary Baron Shemtob is a practicing lawyer and former Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Central Connecticut State University.
Contributions: Micki Siegel de Hernández
Micki Siegel de Hernández, M.P.H., is the health and safety director for the Communications Workers of America (CWA), District 1. CWA represents an extremely diverse group of workers in both the public and private sectors, thousands of whom were responders, as well as survivors, of the 9/11 disaster. She became Chair of the WTC Health Program (WTCHP) Responder Steering Committee in February 2018 after serving as a labor representative on the RSC since its inception. She currently serves on the WTC Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee established under the Zadroga Act. She is also a labor representative on the WTCHP Survivor Program Steering Committee, has served as a labor representative on the NYC DOHMH WTC Registry Labor Advisory Committee, was the labor liaison on the EPA WTC Expert Technical Review Panel, and was the labor co- chair of the WTC Community/Labor Coalition.
Contributions: Patrick Sweeney
Patrick Sweeney, M.A., M.Phil., is a doctoral candidate in Critical Social Psychology at the Graduate Center, CUNY; and a Digital Fellow at the GC Digital Scholarship lab. His research examines media, technology, social categories, and justice. You can find out more about his work at http://patricksweeney.info.
Contributions: Xi Zhu
Xi Zhu, Ph.D., is a research scientist with the Trauma and PTSD program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center. She has a background in imaging processing, machine learning, computational modeling, and big data analytics. Her current research focuses on utilizing resting state fMRI, structural MRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and task f MRI to identify brain biomarkers of PTSD. She is also interested in integrating large- scale datasets across many different types and using a machine learning/Artificial Intelligence approach to construct predictive network models and predict treatment outcome.
