Our graduate capstones partner with local government and organizations to provide a learning experience for our students while we serve our community.
A 2023 collaboration between the County of Clackamas and the PSU Institute on Aging to contextualize the basic needs and resources of Clackamas County urban and rural communities in order to better create and adapt procedures for emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. EMCR and Anthropology students developed and implemented an ethnographic evaluation of how well-suited elderly communities in Estacada are to cope with all stages of disasters through focus groups and interviews with elderly individuals and care facility managers from Estacada, Oregon. Clackamas County will use this project as a pilot study for a larger, county-wide assessment of community emergency preparedness.
A 2022 collaboration between the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) and the Rosewood Initiative to create a strategic plan for integrating underrepresented communities into local disaster preparedness and response initiatives in culturally appropriate and more equitable ways. Lessons were learned through PBEM, Rosewood, and the EMCR team co-facilitating a series of workshops with Nepali, Ethiopian, and Rohingya community members in SE Portland.
A 2021-2022 collaboration with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) of the Department of Defense, Rocky Mountain Rescue Group, and an eco-tourism company to carry out a mission in India to survey a World War 2 American plane crash. EMCR students conducted the risk assessment for the mission as well as ecological, socio-cultural, and political briefings and deliverables to inform the team, assisting them to be more culturally aware and ethical in their various roles. DPAA will be using the models created by the EMCR students for future missions.