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Leadership Team

Karissa Bergene

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Karissa Bergene is the Assistant Director of Research Operations at George Mason University’s (Mason) Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC) and a doctoral student in the Public Policy and Administration Program at Mississippi State University (MSU). Bergene’s current projects investigate pandemic planning policies in the U.S., the interplay of crime patterns with internet technology, estimation of the acceleration of global coastal population settlements, and mortality patterns in the U.S. population. Her intellectual interests focus on the intersection between public administration and research and development management, international management, emergency management, public policy, technology policy, and community resilience. She holds a Master of Public Administration degree and Bachelor of Science-Criminal Justice degree from Appalachian State University. Before starting at Mason, she worked as a Research Associate II at the Social Science Research Center at MSU, as a public administrator in local government, and as an intellectual property administrator in the private sector.

Contact: kbergene@gmu.edu

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CIP and BIO Support for the HDIAC

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The mission of the HDIAC is to provide users with focused expert technical consulting and unbiased scientific and technical information through in-depth analysis and the creation of specialized information products in support of eight vital technical focus areas: Homeland Defense and Security (HD), Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense (CBRN), Biometrics (BIO), Medical (MED), Cultural Studies (CS), and Alternative Energy (AE).

The goal of content produced by the HDIAC is to emphasize the needs of the user by anticipating and responding to customers’ needs. This will be achieved by anticipating HDIAC user information needs through analysis of the social, political, and technical contexts influencing the course and direction of scientific, technical and operational disciplines or domains which define or influence the needs of the community.

The HDIAC disseminates STI in the form of products and services such as a professional journal; training/webinars; podcasts; research, analysis, and responses to user technical inquiries; models and simulation; briefings; conference presentations; state of the art reports; and service promotion.

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Building Dynamic Models for Community and Business Resilience

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Resilient and sustainable communities depend on a thriving business sector, which in turn relies on the well-being of the surrounding community. The purpose of this project is to gather data and support the development of models of business and community resilience and the factors that impact the health and prosperity of businesses within their communities. The models inform decision-making about investments in communities to enable thriving businesses within resilient and sustainable communities.

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Building Resiliency to COVID-19 by Closing the Digital Divide in Native American Communities

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Abstract: Too often, people think of broadband projects only in terms of communications and computers. Citizen engagement is at least as important as any technology to develop and sustain effective capabilities. The purpose of this project is to support Tribal engagement for the purpose of creating digital opportunity among Tribal Nations. We begin by listening, focusing first on understanding the needs of people and what digital opportunities can meet their needs. The need for enhanced digital opportunity has taken on new urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the need to support online social services ranging from education to DMV appointments. In a collaborative effort led by the People-Centered Internet and supported by Althea Corporation and C-RASC, the project team will work with Tribal leaders to understand their needs from their perspective, to support them in building momentum within their communities, and to follow up to keep systems operational. Mason’s role will consist of: (1) providing the design, production, and assessment criteria for pilot micro-courses delivered via video segments; (2) supporting the creation, documentation, and development into a replicable model of a “help desk” that provides expertise in technology, community engagement, and end user training; and (3) conducting and documenting one or more case studies based on the activities undertaken in this project.

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C-RASC Core Member receives NSF grant for Conservation Incentives and the Socio-Spatial Dynamics of Water Sustainability

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Clean water is a vital component of life, and without it, human existence as it’s known today would quickly cease. This is largely why water conservation is an important and ever- growing concern, particularly when it comes to natural resources, like rivers, and the allocation and management of fresh water resources.

Shima Mohebbi, assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University, together with researchers from the University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Clark University, Oklahoma State University, and Florida International University, received a nearly $1.6 million project grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Conservation Incentives and the Socio-Spatial Dynamics of Water Sustainability.

Although this project focuses on the Red River, the second-largest basin located in the southern part of the United States, Mohebbi says the solutions and lessons gained throughout are transferable to water systems around the world.

“Water resource management is a complex problem that is affected by water scarcity, the impact of climate change on water supplies, and decision-makers’ behavior (behind water conservation policies),” Mohebbi says. “Capturing the complex feedback between social and environmental systems over time can raise new fundamental questions in the field of Operations Research and Systems Engineering. This in turn can help with further understanding the intricacies behind water resource management and incentives allocation.”

Under this grant, Mohebbi will develop novel game theory models to understand how conflicts and propensities for cooperative behavior among water users — including farmers — might vary over time across the river network.

The project will start in January 2022 and will run for five years. Working alongside colleagues from fields including geography and environmental sustainability, ecology, and agricultural engineering, Mohebbi says the project’s end goal is to demonstrate how voluntary conservation incentives—like offering subsidies to water users—could potentially be used to achieve water sustainability.

“Along with my student researchers, we will work closely with collaborators, use data collected on user’s belief and behavior, formulate the game theory models, and discover novel and fair solutions around water conservation incentive schemes,” Mohebbi says.

Additionally, Mohebbi is working on another NSF-funded project for Integrative Decision Making Framework to Enhance the Resiliency of Interdependent Critical Infrastructures. This targets water, transportation, and cyber infrastructures.

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Student Undergraduate

Sharmin Hossain

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