Crisis Management and Emergency Preparedness

Dr. Arnold M. Howitt is faculty co-director of the Program on Crisis Leadership and a senior fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS). Howitt has worked extensively on emergency preparedness and crisis management issues in the US and other countries. He has recently been researching and writing about the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, Nepal's emergency response to the 2015 earthquakes, lessons from the emergency response to the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Japan's response to and recovery from the 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear accident, and cross-agency and inter-jurisdictional coordination in China's emergency management system. Howitt directed the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness (1999-2003) sponsored by the US Department of Justice, to conduct research on US preparedness for terrorism and organize and manage a standing task force of Harvard faculty and local, state, and federal officials in emergency management, public safety, law enforcement, and public health. Following the anthrax attacks in the US, he served on the governor's bioterrorism coordinating council in Massachusetts (2002) and was a member of an Institute of Medicine/National Academies panel assessing the federal Metropolitan Medical Response System program (2000-2002). At HKS, Howitt works extensively in executive education for senior officials. Since 2018, Howitt taught a fall course at Tsinghua University's Schwarzman College in Beijing, China. Previously, he held visiting faculty/scholar positions at Kyoto, Keio, Iwate, Kansai, and Tokyo Universities in Japan. Howitt is co-author/editor and author of many books and articles. He earned his BA degree from Columbia University and MA and PhD degrees in political science from Harvard University.

Nick Hambridge serves as the Institutional Risk and Compliance Officer at Harvard University where he leads the University's institutional risk management program, which provides a structured process for identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and managing risks and opportunities across various levels of the university. Hambridge previously served in a variety of other risk and emergency management positions, including Institute Risk Officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Director, Enterprise Risk and Resilience at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Associate Director of Emergency Management at Harvard University; and Interim Director, Emergency Services at the American Red Cross of Massachusetts. He has also conducted research with the Program on Crisis Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Hambridge received his BA in international affairs from the University of Georgia, his MBA in public and nonprofit management from Boston University, and his MPA with a certificate in management, leadership, and decision sciences from the Harvard Kennedy School.