Improve Amber Alerts or risk alienating public? DEM Professor speaks with CTV News

Ontario’s Amber Alert system risks alienating the public by issuing alerts, sometimes late at night, that people perceive they can’t usefully respond to. Disaster & Emergency Management (DEM) professor Kenneth McBey pointed to two features of the system that in his view risk training people to ignore alerts: sending them to every phone in the […]

Digital Global Health researchers take a deep dive into contact tracing apps

Digital Contact Tracing (D-CT) apps are digital interventions that allow governments and epidemiologists to track and trace the spread of COVID-19. While D-CT apps represent a promising pandemic response tool, they are not without controversy. Little research has been done regarding the relationship between user-engagement and the efficacy and impact of these applications. To respond […]

DEM Alumna Deryn Rizzi becomes first female fire chief for City of Mississauga

The City of Mississauga has selected Deryn Rizzi as its Fire Chief and Director, Emergency Management effective February 2, 2021. Chief Rizzi completed both a Masters of Arts, Disaster and Emergency Management and a Disaster and Emergency Management Certificate with the School of Administrative Studies. “I am excited to have Deryn at the City of […]

DEM students recognized by OAEM

Disaster & Emergency Management (DEM) undergraduate students Mahmood Khan and Tiana Putric were recently recognized for their academic achievements in the 2019-20 academic year with awards from the Ontario Association of Emergency Managers (OAEM). Khan and Putric are among few other undergraduate students to receive these honours. Khan received the Brian Hook Memorial Award and Putric was recognized with the […]

Perspectives on COVID-19 with Prof. Eric Kennedy

Coronavirus has without a doubt changed the lives of many, and in this video Eric Kennedy, assistant professor in the Disaster and Emergency Management program, discusses the significance of social interventions which have helped to teach people a new way of life. As a recipient of a rapid research funding grant, Kennedy acknowledges the quick […]

DEM researchers receive over one million in COVID-19 research funding

Three York University researchers will receive more than $1.1 million in COVID-19 rapid research funding over two years to explore issues of trust, stigmatization and social perceptions of risk, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced Friday. The results from these Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies research projects could affect the response […]

SAS in the News: Prof. Rozdilsky quoted on Pickering Nuclear alert

On January 13, Global News reported on Canada’s emergency alert system just 24 hours after an emergency alert was mistakenly sent out about a nuclear ‘incident’ at the Pickering Nuclear Generation Station. Prof. Jack Rozdilsky, from the Disaster and Emergency Management program, defended the alert system against mounting skepticism from the community. “From a public […]