Karen Levin, RN, MPH, CHES

Karen L. Levin, RN, MPH, CHES is Director for the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Associate Director of the Division of Planning and Response, National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She has leveraged her trauma nursing background to inform her career in public health emergency preparedness and response. She is a certified public health nurse, nationally certified health education specialist and holds a master degree in epidemiology. Ms. Levin has held senior staff, management and command positions in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the California Department of Public Health and the New York State Department of Health. While at those agencies, she participated in a leadership and field response capacity in the front line responses to a succession of public health emergencies: West Nile Virus outbreak, 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, subsequent intentional Anthrax release, SARS and has recent involvement during H1N1 pandemic. Ms. Levin also has significant international field experience: she served as Team Lead for World Health Organization- Afro region where she lived and worked in Ethiopia. Her recent disaster preparedness work was in India post tsunami developing and training local disaster response task forces for emergencies such as cyclones, flooding and tsunami. As Director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness, Ms. Levin oversaw the center’s education and training programs for state and local health departments and their disaster response partners, and actively participates in multiple federal, state and local emergency preparedness and response planning groups, such as serving on a CDC sponsored expert panel to develop a community rapid needs assessment to understand and report disaster impact on a community and the urgent needs post disaster. She is recognized as a strong advocate of regionally-oriented, cultural-sensitive preparedness and training activities and collaborations, and is the primary author of a recent Columbia University white paper on the subject of regional public health preparedness for nuclear terrorism. Also, Ms. Levin is a guest lecturer at Columbia School of Nursing. October, 2010, Ms. Levin assumed the title and role of Director of the Columbia Regional Learning Center, a CDC funded grant to Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness for the development of regional Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Centers. She also designs and develops course content for the center’s trainings such as her Home Health Care agency workforce presentation today and a climate change course being presented tomorrow.