Disaster after disaster, we are faced with the question, “how can I be prepared?” Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner attempts to answer this question so that we may be prepared when disaster strikes. Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner - an internationally recognized authority on global threats from infectious disease - has more than 25 years of technical and policy experience in infectious disease surveillance and response. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Penn State Hershey College of Medicine and teaches courses on public health and hospital preparedness for disasters and terrorist emergencies, biological risk management, and developing training exercises and drills. He currently is the Director of Strategic Partnerships in Disaster Medicine at both the Department of Emergency Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and with the Caribbean Center for Disaster Medicine at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine on the island of St. Maarten. He has appeared on CNN, BBC, C-SPAN and other news outlets to share his expertise in global health threats. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx