Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science as Force Multipliers for Emergency Management

Posted on March 24, 2020

PrepTalk with Dr. Sophia Liu

Today, FEMA and its emergency management partners released Dr. Sophia Liu’s “Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science as Force Multipliers for Emergency Management.” In her PrepTalk, Dr. Liu highlights how social media can be an effective communication channel in disasters, how emergency managers can incorporate data provided by the general public into actionable intelligence during an emergency response, and how citizens can assist with data collection, processing, and analysis.
This PrepTalk can directly inform planning and operations in response to COVID-19. For today’s release, Dr. Liu has also provided useful resources for COVID-19 crowdsourcing, citizen science, and open innovation.
Dr. Sophia B. Liu is an Innovation Specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Science and Decisions Center specializing in participatory science and open innovation. She is also the Co-Chair of the Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (CCS) and the USGS Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Coordinator. In 2007, Dr. Liu helped initiate the FEMA Crowdsourcing Unit.
Her PrepTalk video and additional resources are available at www.fema.gov/preptalks. Liu is the seventh presentation to be released on video from the 5th PrepTalks Symposium, held September 19th in Washington, DC.
PrepTalks are a partnership between FEMA, the International Association of Emergency Managers, the National Emergency Management Association, the National Homeland Security Consortium, and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.