Dr. Maki Fukami, the President of the International Institute of Global Resilience (IIGR), can now add a new title to her name: President of the Japan Council of the International Association of Emergency managers (IAEM).
Dr. Fukami was appointed to this position at the November 2015 annual IAEM Conference in Las Vegas. At the conference, Dr. Fukami also received the 2015 IAEM Chairman’s Award for her “exceptional efforts serving as an IAEM Ambassador in Japan.”
Dr. Fukami helped establish IIGR following the catastrophic triple disaster that struck Eastern Japan on March 11, 2011. IIGR works to help strengthen emergency management and disaster resilience in Japan and the United States through mutual learning; and to improve Japan – U.S. cooperation in disasters, including cooperation on Humanitarian Assistance/ Disaster Relief in the Asia Pacific Region.
Since its establishment, IIGR has sponsored and participated in numerous disaster management classes and seminars in the U.S. and Japan. In 2014, IIGR published the first Japanese-language guidebook on the Incident Command System (ICS), an emergency management system widely used in the U.S. and other countries. IIGR is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.
As President of IAEM’s Japan Council, Dr. Fukami will continue IIGR’s emphasis on strengthening disaster response systems in Japan and the U.S. as well as Japan – U.S. cooperation with regard to disasters.