Elena Savoia, M.D., M.P.H. has a background in Medicine, Outcome Research, Hygiene and Public Health Emergency Preparedness, and extensive experience in the assessment of public health systems’ emergency preparedness capabilities. Dr. Savoia has been the principal investigator of the CDC funded Harvard School of Public Health Center for Public Health Preparedness (HSPH-CPHP) and co-investigator for the Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (HSPH-PERRC). As P.I. of the HSPH-CPHP her work has focused on coordinating the training activities of the center according to the needs of the public health workforce in Massachusetts and Maine.  In doing so she has collaborated with state and local partners and leveraged the expertise of Faculty affiliated with the Center to meet partners’ needs and implemented several training activities in emergency preparedness such as symposia, seminars, online lectures, exercises, conferences, and public engagement initiatives. She has conducted several projects related to public health emergency preparedness and analyzed data from over 200 surveys in the field focusing on the assessment of different types and levels of emergency preparedness capabilities (i.e. inter-agency communication and coordination, flu clinics management, use of volunteers) and on the development of a methodology to validate instruments designed to measure preparedness. Dr. Savoia has over 10 years of teaching experience in the area of public health professional education both in the U.S. and abroad as instructor of several courses in outcome research, survey development, epidemiology, evidence based public health and public health preparedness.