Elizabeth Dunn, MPH, CPH

Instructor II, College of Public Health

Contact Info

• Office: CPH 2134
• Academic Email: eadunn2@usf.edu
• Academic Phone: (813) 396-9403
• View My C.V. | View My Website

Education

Discipline

Global Disaster Management, Humanitarian Relief, and Homeland Security

Specialization

• Community Resilience & Local Capacity Building
• Food System Resilience & Humanitarian Food Supply Chains
• Disaster Preparedness for Vulnerable Populations
• Refugee Resettlement & Migration
• International Humanitarian Assistance & Mass Care
• Human Security & Anti-Human Trafficking
• Continuity of Operations & Business Resilience Planning
• CERT Leadership, Volunteer Coordination & Community Engagement

Biography

Elizabeth Dunn joined the University of South Florida College of Public Health in 2012, where she supports the Community Engaged Homeland Security and Emergency Management undergraduate program and serves as Assistant to the Director of the Global Disaster Management, Humanitarian Relief, and Homeland Security (GHH) program. Beginning her academic career as an adjunct instructor, she now serves as an Instructor II, teaching courses in international humanitarian relief, disaster management, and homeland security. Her teaching integrates applied learning, experiential education, and community partnerships to prepare students for practice-based careers in emergency management and public health. With a professional background that bridges business management, program development, and public health, her experience spans international economic development and post-conflict recovery, as well as local disaster planning and community preparedness initiatives. Her scholarly interests focus on evaluating disaster management systems, with particular emphasis on vulnerable populations, community engagement, and cross-sector collaboration. She is deeply committed to advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), emphasizing experiential and service-learning approaches that connect academic learning with real-world impact. Her work also explores refugee and migrant integration, disaster food systems, and the influence of the built environment and social conditions on at-risk communities. Beyond the classroom, she holds multiple leadership roles at the national, state, and community levels. These include serving as Lead of the FEMA National Experiential Learning and Leadership (ELL) in Emergency Management Special Interest Group (SIG), Track Lead for Community Preparedness and Resilience for the National Homeland Security Conference (NHSC), Director of the USF Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and Vice-Chair of the Board for the Society for Critical Operations and Preparedness Engineering (SCOPE). Through these roles, she works to strengthen community resilience, expand emergency preparedness capacity, and promote inclusive, interdisciplinary approaches to disaster management and humanitarian response. Her contributions to teaching, community engagement, and applied practice have been recognized through numerous awards. She is the recipient of the Hillsborough Systems Thinker Award (2024), the Global Education Faculty Award (2022–2023), and the Outstanding Community-Engaged Teaching Award (2022), as well as the College of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award (2020). Leadership of the USF CERT program has also received statewide and institutional recognition, including the Florida CERT Association Team of the Year Award (2023), the Excellence in Volunteerism Award from Volunteer Florida (2023), and the USF Health Program of the Year Award (2025). Collaborative and community-engaged initiatives have been further recognized through honors such as the Outstanding Student Organization Collaboration Award (2025) and the Community Engagement Project of the Year Award (2025) for the development of the RAMWI Women’s Empowerment and Leadership (WEL) Institute. Most recently, her applied research and practice contributions were recognized with the 2025 Best Plan, Report, or Study Award from the American Planning Association Florida Chapter Sun Coast. Elizabeth is passionate about teaching and mentoring students and is committed to preparing the next generation of public health and emergency management professionals through innovative, practice-driven education.