Issa Thullah

Issa Belmond Thullah is a first-generation doctoral student in Public Policy and Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, where he also serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science, a Master of Science in development management, and a Master of Arts in applied security and strategy. His research aims to strengthen systems that protect vulnerable communities, especially in emergency preparedness, by integrating their concerns, fears, needs, and ideas into planning, beyond technical tools like Geographic Information System or Doppler radar. By incorporating social insights into emergency strategies, his work seeks to bridge the gap between institutional systems and individual readiness, with a focus on historically marginalized and underserved populations. He is a Bill Anderson Fund fellow, a Commonwealth Scholar, and a Mandela Washington Fellow.