Joshua McDuffie is a 4th year PhD student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Vanderbilt University. He is a native of Hyattsville, Maryland, and a proud graduate of North Carolina A&T State University, a historically black university. His research interests include natural hazard risk education, community resilience, and equitable infrastructure planning practices. McDuffie is active in several professional and academic organizations and currently serves as the vice chair of the Bill Anderson Fund Student Council.