John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won more than twenty awards. In 2005 the National Academies of Science named The Great Influenza, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine, and the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Pathogens gave Barry its 2005 “September Eleventh Award” for his contributions to pandemic preparedness. In 2006 the National Academies also invited him to give its annual Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture; he is the only non-scientist ever to give that lecture. In 1998 Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year’s best book of American history.

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Ana-Marie Jones is the Executive Director of CARD - Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters, a nonprofit located in Alameda County, California. Created by local community agencies after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, CARD trains and supports nonprofits and special needs communities in disaster preparedness, response and recovery activities. In her tenure, she has re-written and redefined CARD’s services and curriculum to be based on community capacity building, economic empowerment and leadership development.

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