DeeDee Bennett Gayle

Dr. Bennett Gayle is an Associate Professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity (CEHC) at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is also the director of the Social Vulnerability Laboratory at CEHC. Her research interests include emergency management, marginalized populations during disasters, emergency communications, disaster policy, and mobile wireless communications.  She broadly examines the influence and integration of advanced technologies on the practice of emergency management, and for use by vulnerable populations. 

She has secured several research grants and contracts, including from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security. She has administered the annual state of the community survey of emergency management academic programs on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since 2017. With over 50 publications, work is published in various journals, and she has presented at several conferences related to emergency management, disability, wireless technology, and future studies. She is co-editor of the edited book volume Social Vulnerability to COVID-19: Impacts of Technology Adoption and Information Behavior in publication with Springer Nature Publishing. She is also a co-author on five Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory filings, many of which were cited in rulemakings. 

Dr. Bennett Gayle received her Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in Fire and Emergency Management. She has a unique academic background having received both her M.S. in Public Policy and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is an Advisory Board Member for the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management (I-DIEM).