Disaster risk management and wildfire research
Intro
Jay Balagna (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy researcher at RAND. His research interests include disaster studies, disaster risk management, wildfire in the American West, the influence of climate change on disasters, climate-related and post-disaster migration, and the social determinants of health.
Prior to joining Pardee RAND, Balagna was a wildland firefighter in Nevada and Montana, an emergency medical technician in Los Angeles, and a political journalist working in the United States and Chile. He has an MPhil in policy analysis from Pardee RAND, an M.P.H. from Emory University, and a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Nevada, Reno.