Leremy Colf on Strengthening FEMA Through Data-Informed Policy Reform

Send us Fan Mail This episode of Data for the People! features Leremy Colf, a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Center for Data Policy, who recently wrote a policy brief about six practical, high-impact policy options to strengthen the Federal Emergency Management Agency by reducing waste and improving response effectiveness. Colf is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Campus who previously worked in the federal government at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In those various roles, he has used science, data, and evidence to develop a Federal Data Strategy, improve preparedness and response for public health and medical disasters, and improve threat characterization and bioterrorism defense. Read his policy brief, Reforming the Federal Emergency Management Agency: Policy Options to Reduce Waste and Improve Response Effectiveness.  00:07 — Introduction 01:26 — Background in Federal Government & Data 04:49 — Becoming a Data Person 06:08 — Surprises About Federal Data 07:56 — From DC to Oklahoma 10:30 — Disaster Response from the Ground 11:37 — Synopsis of the FEMA Policy Brief 14:34 — The Most Important Policy Option: Streamlining Legislation 16:12 — Improving Data Sharing Across Agencies 19:57 — Barriers to Common Sense Solutions 22:28 — A Data-Driven Approach to Disaster Reform 26:16 — Why Now? The Policy Window for FEMA Reform 29:42 — Favorite Public Dataset: Open FEMA 32:16 — Hidden Gems: Why Great Data Goes Unnoticed 34:22 — My Data Story: A Personal Emergency 36:05 — Closing & Wrap-Up The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation