Panelists

Cindy L. Lewis, MSPH, CSP, CIT, is Director, Office of Professional Development and Program Evaluation, Associate Dean Admissions & Alumni and Associate Professor, Health Policy & Management, Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Services in Little Rock Arkansas.

Lewis has more than 25 years’ experience in safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene and training. She has worked as an industrial hygienist for KBR, a safety & health manager for Cooper Energy Services and Anheuser-Busch, and previously was the Director of the Gulf Coast Safety Institute at the College of the Mainland. She holds a B.S. in Chemistry from MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, where she was named the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Career Award winner, and an M.S. in Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences from the University of Illinois – Chicago, where she was a NIOSH trainee.

Lewis holds the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and Certified Instructional Trainer (CIT) designations from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP). Lewis is also a Certified Trainer in both “Take Flight with DISC” and “Bring Your ‘A’ Game”. She has published articles in ASSP’s Professional Safety and the VPPPA’s The Leader and has presented at numerous professional association conferences.

In 2017, Lewis was appointed by the Secretary of Labor to the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) and has been re-appointed each term since. In 2021, Lewis was appointed as Chair of NACOSH and the Heat Prevention Work Group.

In 2024, Lewis became a member of the Advisory Board for the Greater Arkansas Chapter of the American Red Cross. This appointment culminates her experiences of safety, health and disaster preparedness and response after living in Houston for 24 years and experiencing Tropical Storm Allison and Hurricanes Ike and Harvey. She has led the development of a disaster readiness event, “Don’t Be Scared, Be Prepared!” for the Little Rock area. Lewis also serves on the advisory boards for the World Cares Center Disaster Volunteer Credential and the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SWCOEH) at the University of Texas School of Public Health

In her “spare” time Lewis enjoys traveling the world, volunteering at the Little Rock Zoo, and visiting her nieces at Disney World and Illinois State University.

Simon, originally from England and a U.S. resident for over 25 years, began his career as a consultant business and asset valuer, working with major clients like BP, British Gas, and the Duchy of Cornwall estate. He later worked with Brazil’s Rioguarda Group, a risk mitigation firm. After experiencing both 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy firsthand, Simon joined the Jersey City Community Emergency Response Team, deploying to major HAZMAT incidents including the $1B+ Norfolk Southern derailment. He also served as Apple TV’s on-site Project Manager for the $500M Spielberg/Hanks production Masters of the Air. Recognized by his city for his disaster response and civic actions, Simon has spoken on disaster mitigation globally and serves on the advisory boards of the World Cares’ Disaster Volunteerism Academy, the University of St. Andrews’ Centre for Minorities Research, and the board of the Youth Foundation of Jersey City. 

Lower Manhattan is an integral part of Salvatore Puglisi’s journey: he started as an EMT during 9/11. Now, he is a respected Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Work Based Coordinator at the Murry Bergtraum Campus.

Salvatore found his way to the classroom as a way to honor two of his EMT partners and friend, Keith Fairben and Mario Santoro, who were killed helping others during the 9/11 attack. Before 9/11, Salvatore gave college a try and decided it wasn’t for him. Instead, he took an EMT course, immediately fell in love with the work, and served as an EMT for New York Presbyterian Hospital EMS for 10 years.

After 9/11 and as a tribute to Keith and Mario’s memory, Salvatore reevaluated his future goals and gave college another try. With a greater sense of purpose this time, he pursued a degree in Social Psychology and Statistics at Queens College, then applied for the New York City Teaching Fellows. At the Fellows interview, he learned that one of the teachers who interviewed him had taught alongside Keith’s mother at a Public School in Queen. To this day, it’s a running joke that Keith guided Salvatore into his first teaching job.

Eventually, the NYC DOE opened “Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management” (UASEM), a school tailor-fit for Salvatore’s skills. He spent the summer before the school opened creating the vision for emergency preparedness and created the FIRST High School curriculum for Emergency Management in the country. Salvatore drew on his established experiences and partnerships from his Emergency Medical past.

This school had to engage students like him: the ones who didn’t like school and weren’t engaged with traditional academic classes. Salvatore believed that if students could see that they had the power to contribute to the world, and impact their communities in an important and meaningful way, their learning would have a purpose, giving meaning to the words “Never Forget”.

As one who never rests, Salvatore continues help build Youth Emergency Preparedness in his local community, and on a larger scale in New York City. His collaboration with local and non-profit organizations led to thousands of adolescents and adults being trained in CPR first aid, Stop the Bleed and Naloxone training. To date two CPR trained students have had cardiac arrest saves. One on a three year old child, the other on an elderly neighbor who collapsed while mowing lawn.

Susan Boxer Kappel, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT, CGP, CCATP, CMNCS, is the Clinical Director and Founder of Creative Arts Network LLC. She currently serves as Chair of the New York State Board for Mental Health Practitioners, is a Clinical Supervisor at Hofstra University’s Counseling and Mental Health Professions Clinic, and brings her expertise to World Cares Center’s Mental Health Advisory Board.

Eric Persaud, DrPH, is a Health Specialist in the Worker Training Program (WTP) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Persaud focuses on evaluating and researching training programs related to preparing workers for emergencies and disasters, and hazardous workplaces. Persaud received his Doctorate in Public Health from SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, his Master of Environmental Assessment from North Carolina State University, and his Bachelor of Science in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from City College of New York.

Lucia Velotti earned her first PhD in Public management from the University of Salerno, Italy where she discussed her dissertation on Network performance focusing on the case of waste management crisis in Campania Region, Italy. She earned her second Ph.D from the School of Public Policy and Administration at University of Delaware focusing on Disaster Management. Lucia Velotti joined the Disaster Research Center as research assistant as well as NUWCREN in 2009.

Since then, she has been involved and proactively proposed and implemented new research. Her international research experiences are related to understanding the feasibility of vertical evacuation in partnerships with Japanese and Dutch scholars, and the impact of disaster subcultures on emergency management in the Netherlands. She has also been part of the field work research assessing the impact in Haiti in the aftermath of the January 12, 2010 earthquake.

In the U.S context she is working at the “Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) Technology, Weather Forecasts, and Warnings: Integrating the End User Community” project and on the “Perception of the August 23, 2011 Virginia earthquake on the universities campuses in Virginia, Delaware and New York” where she is investigating warning systems related to different kinds of hazard, (tornado and earthquake) for which warning times vary. Within this framework she is also currently investigating how to enhance people‘s resilience trough a more comprehensive approach aimed at involving the whole community.