Allison Stewart is a trained epidemiologist with hands-on experience with disaster response, including outbreak response. At her previous position at the health department in Houston, Texas, she was in charge of surveillance at the shelters following Hurricane Ike, and was significantly involved in the H1N1 pandemic outbreak response (the first US death was her case and her team handled the second largest school based outbreak in the US). Allison was also recruited for disaster response for Ebola in West Africa.