Sharon Kushnir is currently a division director at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Resilience, at the Office of Resilience Strategy in the Evaluations and Analysis Division. She is responsible for evaluation efforts across the Resilience enterprise at FEMA, and is coordinating research efforts across Resilience in emergency management with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology.
Before her role at the Office of Resilience Strategy, Kushnir was the Branch Chief leading efforts to measure grant effectiveness and supported the division’s work through analysis and evaluation. Kushnir oversaw grant effectiveness case studies as well as a return-on-investment study for FEMA. Kushnir has been with DHS for the last 23 years and has extensive experience in the emergency preparedness and homeland security fields, contributing to a wide range of policy work, including the Hurricane Katrina After-Action Report, the National Preparedness Report, and the Nationwide Plan Review, and the Presidential Policy Directive Campaign. Prior to joining DHS/FEMA, Kushnir worked as a program manager, leading a team supporting the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where she used her technical background in engineering to support and manage research programs for the Department of Defense. While at DHS, she completed a Master of Arts in strategic security studies at National Defense University, where her thesis focused on Public Preparedness Campaigns. Sharon Kushnir has recently completed her Partnership for Public Service’s Excellence in Government Fellows program.