Subject matter experts from a diverse range of backgrounds contribute to LAEPF’s Blog on topics including Business & Economics, Emergency Management, and Public Health.
Lars Gustavsson, a Swedish national, has spent most of his professional life working in the Overseas Development Assistance Industry. Through-out most of his life he has led many “Build-Operate-Transfer” efforts ranging from small company start-ups, to consortia and coalitions, to major organizational functional change efforts, to academia and new degree programmes, to major complex relief efforts, to major infrastructure projects.
Garry Herron – Chief Business & Economics Advisor
A lifelong resident of Southern California and a UCLA graduate, Garry Herron's experience with business and economics spans a first career in big business and a second career in small business. Now retired from both enterprises he volunteers his time to help others, especially students enrolled at local institutions of public higher education. He has found that combining four decades' worth of experiences in business with research on how national and global economics impact business success is key to helping college students transition from education to career.
Dr. Peter Katona
Dr. Peter Katona, MD is a Clinical Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He has worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an EIS (Epidemic Intelligence Service) Officer studying viral diseases and doing epidemic investigation; and at Apria/Corum Healthcare as their Corporate Medical Director.
He is an Adjunct Professor at the Fielding School of Public Health and an Instructor at Louisiana State University. He is active at the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT) and the Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education Expertise in Clinical Infectious Diseases & Internal Medicine, specializing in Epidemiology, Public Health Medical Informatics, Biotechnology Terrorism, Biological Weapons, and Biowarfare.
Brie Loskota
Brie Loskota is the executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC. Her research focuses on how religions change and make change in the world. She is co-founder and senior advisor to the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute and a trainer-facilitator with the United State Institute of Peace’s Generation Change program, where she has trained young leaders from across the Middle East and Africa. Brie’s expertise is vast – she has a specialized focus with: community resilience and disaster response; faith organizations; government-religious engagement and partnership; religious pluralism, change and innovation; faith community leadership; international security, conflict and affairs.