Master's in Emergency & Disaster Management
Attila Hertelendy
Dr. Hertelendy is an award winning Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and teaches in the International Executive Master’s in Emergency and Disaster Management Program. He has over 30 years leadership experience in emergency services and as a hospital executive working in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Canada and the US.
He is a certified chief fire officer and paramedic. Operationally he has been the incident commander globally at major oil tank fires, refinery fires, high rise fires, train derailments , hazmat incidents, tornadoes and hurricanes. He served as a medical commander during Hurricane Katrina and emergency consultant during Hurricane Irma in Florida. He also has experience managing public health emergencies such as SARS, Ebola and the recent COVID-19 Pandemic.
Dr. Hertelendy's research focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to solving complex organizational problems in healthcare, business and the field of disaster management that center on crisis leadership, teams, organizational culture and trust. His research interests further explore the health implications of climate change and how technology can be used to improve both the delivery and sustainability of healthcare during disasters.
Professor Hertelendy is the author of over 130 published articles in leading healthcare, disaster and management journals such as The Lancet, JAMA, The Lancet Planetary Health, BMJ, Harvard Business Review, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine and Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. He is Associate Editor for the Journal of Emergency Management, Co-Editor in Chief for International Journal of Emergency Services, and Deputy Editor for Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.
He is a frequent international speaker on leadership, crisis and emergency management, global health security and climate change. He has developed and validated 100's plans, conducted and evaluated numerous disaster exercises, and facilitated over 150 seminars and workshops ranging in topics from leadership, crisis management, incident command training, global health and humanitarian crisis and business continuity planning worldwide for more than 100 clients in oil and gas, refinery and petrochemical industries, government, manufacturing, security services, heavy industry, technology and healthcare.