Bernadette Longo, Ph.D. smiling in front of a lava flow consuming a road in Kilauea
In July, Orvis Emerita faculty Bernadette Longo, PhD, RN, CNL, PHNA-BC, FAAN participated in the U.S. Department of the Interior's Strategic Sciences Group (SSG) deployment to Kīlauea Volcano's eruption in Hawaii. The SSG, established in 2012 after Deep Water Horizon, provides technical assistance and develops interdisciplinary science-based assessments for environmental crises and delivers actionable results to decision makers. Prof. Longo, an expert on health effects from volcanic air pollution, represented nursing and public health on the multi-disciplinary team.
She described the experience as "very humbling to see the immense eruption and destruction of land and homes. Working with the multi-disciplinary team was very rewarding. We came up with some out-of-the-box ideas and evidence-based interventions." Longo will continue to be a resource for the state agencies and the SSG.
