Meghan McPherson

Meghan McPherson is a Professor of Practice in Emergency Management at Tulane University. McPherson is a seasoned emergency manager with over two decades of experience in the field. Most recently, she was the System Director of Emergency Management Education, Training, and Exercises for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. In this role, Meghan led the development, planning, and execution of a robust training and exercise program across the health system. Prior to her System role, she served as the Director of Emergency Management for Mount Sinai Queens Hospital on the front lines of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to joining the Mount Sinai Health System, Meghan was Assistant Director of the Center for Health Innovation (CHI) at Adelphi University, where she served as the program coordinator and faculty for emergency management graduate programs. Her work concentrated on community-based social resilience initiatives. Preceding her work at Adelphi, Meghan spent four years as both the Grants Manager and the Energy Assurance Program Manager in the Governor’s Office of Energy and Planning in New Hampshire. While in this position, she supported the State Emergency Operations Center during disasters by ensuring the continuity of the state’s energy supply. She also worked for James Lee Witt Associates in Washington, D.C. and deployed multiple times to Louisiana to support recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina.

She previously wrote the curriculum for the MPS in Emergency Management and served as adjunct faculty at Tulane University’s Emergency and Security Studies graduate programs. Meghan also served on the University of Southern California Emergency Management program faculty, where she also participated in both curriculum and course development. Meghan is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), Certified National Healthcare Disaster Professional (NHDP-BC), and Certified Healthcare Provider Continuity Professional (CHPCP). She is a member of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security Executive Leaders Program Cohort 2102 and was honored in 2011 as one of New Hampshire’s Top 40 under 40. She was named the recipient of the 2023 David McIntyre Homeland Security Educator Award and the 2025 USC Bovard College Faculty Excellence in Student Mentoring Award. Meghan earned her BA in political science at the University of New Hampshire and her Master of Public Policy (MPP) with a concentration in national security policy from The George Washington University.