Emergency Management

The Emergency Management pathway includes courses in disaster health, catastrophes, and system design.

Concentration Committee:

Dr. Lauren Clay (Emergency and Disaster Health Systems), Dr. Lucy Wilson* (Emergency and Disaster Health Systems)
*designated primary advisor

Downloadable PDF:  PhD Degree Audit (Emergency Management)

Required Public Policy Core Courses (18 credits required)

  • PUBL 600:Research Methodology
  • PUBL 603: Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis
  • PUBL 604:Statistical Analysis Or an equivalent graduate-level statistics course from an accredited university
  • PUBL 609: Doctoral Research Seminar
Choose two of the following:
  • ECON 605:  Benefit-Cost Evaluation
  • ECON 611: Advanced Econometric Analysis I (Fall)
  • ECON 612: Advanced Econometric Analysis II (Spring)
  • EDHS 691*: Business Development and Strategic Planning
  • EDHS 720*: Emergency Health Services Quality Assessment
  • PUBL 607: Statistical Applications in Evaluation Research
  • PUBL 608: Applied Multivariate Regression – An Introduction
  • PUBL 611: Casual Inference in Program Evaluation
  • SOCY 619: Qualitative Methods in Social Research

Other methodological/analytic courses recommended by track advisor(s)


Required Public Policy Disciplinary Foundation Courses (9 credits required)

  • PUBL 601:Political and Social Context of the Policy Process
  • SOCY 606: Social Inequality and Social Policy
Choose one of the following:
  • PUBL 602: Microeconomics for Public Policy (formerly ECON 600)
  • ECON 601: Microeconomic Analysis

Required Emergency Health Core Courses (9 credits required)

  • EDHS 630: Issues Analysis and Proposal Writing
  • EDHS 640: Introduction to High-Performance EDHS
  • EDHS 642: Event-Driven Resource Deployment

Emergency Management Electives (12 credits required)

Choose four of the following:
  • EDHS 632: Disaster Health Services
  • EDHS 633: Refugee Health Services
  • EDHS 634: Disaster Mitigation
  • EDHS 636: Disaster Response
  • EDHS 637: Disaster Recovery
  • EDHS 638: Disaster Preparedness
  • EDHS 639: Catastrophe Preparation and Response
  • EDHS 691*: Business Development and Strategic Planning
  • PUBL 613: Managing Public Organizations
  • PUBL 623: Governmental Budgeting

Other elective courses recommended by track advisor(s)


*Can count towards either a Public Policy Elective OR an Emergency Health Elective – not both

Other courses taught at UMBC and sister institutions within the University System of Maryland may be relevant to the Emergency Services Concentrations. Before registering for any such courses, approval from an advisor is required.

Total Required Credits: 48


Doctoral Dissertation Research (18 credits required)

  • PUBL 899: Doctoral Dissertation Research (See “a” below)

All Ph.D. candidates must register for a minimum of 18 semester hours of doctoral dissertation research. Guidelines for writing and defending dissertations are available on the Public Policy Graduate Student Group site. Copies of proposals and dissertations are available for inspection in the Graduate Student Reading Room.

Browse a list of completed dissertations from previous students. For a full list of theses and dissertations, visit the database search on UMBC’s Library page (database search requires UMBC login).

Other Degree Requirements

a) Ph.D. Dissertation (PUBL 899, 9 credits per semester)

1) Committee formed

2) Topic Approved (proposal defense)

3) Final Dissertation defense

b) Recommended for degree