Experts Gather To Discuss Making New York Safer
Jan 16, 2008
Brooklyn, NY - Experts from New York and across the nation gathered recently to discuss how better to prepare New York City and State from a terrorist attack or natural disaster, at the first major conference held by Protect New York, a professional society originated in 2006 at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. The two-day conference was held at SUNY’s Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce, in Manhattan.
In announcing the conference, organizer Dr. Ernest Sternberg said, "The biggest threats to New York City today are terrorism, pandemic flu, and coastal surge from an off-shore hurricane." Accordingly, the meeting highlighted advances in protection and response for these scenarios and other potential disasters in New York City and throughout the state. Dr. Sternberg, president of Protect New York, teaches at the University at Buffalo and studies the process of decision-making in crisis situations.
More than 50 researchers, many from State University of New York and private New York State colleges and universities, presented their research and exchanged ideas in a series of panel discussions. Representatives from the FBI, Office of Homeland Security, Association of Fire Chiefs, and the state Department of Transportation also participated.
Conference sessions addressed a broad range of security and disaster-response topics, including transportation security in New York City; border security; behavioral screening at security checkpoints; securing the state's critical infrastructure; radiation emergencies; disaster-response ethics; hospital and emergency-medicine capacity during a disaster; security technologies; emergency logistics and training for all-hazard events; and behavioral approaches to security at airports and other checkpoints, among other subjects.
Organized by Protect New York, the meeting was sponsored by the New York State Office of Homeland Security and MCEER, an academic institute that studies disaster response headquartered at SUNY Buffalo.
For additional information about SUNY Downstate Medical Center, go to www.downstate.edu.
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About SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside. A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.
SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.