Thomas Kirsch

Dr. Kirsch is the Director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering.

He is a board-certified emergency physician and expert in disaster management and science, wilderness medicine and health care management.

Dr. Kirsch has served as the National Physician Advisor for the American Red Cross Disaster Health Services, and has consulted on disaster-related issues for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Pan American Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Federal Emergency Management Agency,Earthquake Engineering Institute, Candian Red Cross, and the USAIDs' Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

He has real-life disaster experience from local incidents to hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the NYC response to the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and New Zealand and the 2010 floods in Pakistan.

Dr. Kirsch has authored more than 60 scientific articles, dozens of abstracts, and 14 textbook chapters. He also authored the disaster medical textbook, Emergent Field Medicine (VanRooyen-Kirsch). He has presented at numerous national and international conferences. He serves on the Editorial Board for the American Medical Association’s journal, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. He is a reviewer for the American Journal of Public Health, Annals of Emergency Medicine, Health Affairs, Emergency Medicine Reports, and the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

In 2013 he recived the inaugural "Disaster Science Award" from the American College of Emergency Physicians.

He currently teaches the masters-level courses Introduction to Humanitarian Emergencies and Public Health Methods in Disasters at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Austere Medicine at the School of Medicine, and directs a Disaster Fellowship.