Jennifer Gray Thompson is the CEO of After the Fire USA. After the devastating fires in the North Bay of San Francisco in October 2017, she became Executive Director of Rebuild North Bay Foundation (RNBF), a nonprofit dedicated to help the region rebuild better, greener, safer, and faster. In 2021, RNBF created After the Fire USA. ATF USA provides compassionate, effective, and relevant consulting services to wildfire communities to support locally led and designed recoveries. She is a cofounder of CANVAS, an association of disaster professionals who “listen locally, act regionally, reform nationally.” She also hosts the “How to Disaster” podcast, which highlights innovative leaders in the space of disaster.

Laurie Johnson is an award-winning urban planner specializing in disaster recovery and catastrophe risk management. For over 30 years, she has combined her unique blend of professional practice and research to help communities and organizations address the complex challenges posed by natural hazards and disasters. Much of her post-disaster recovery efforts are captured in her book, After Great Disasters: An In-Depth Analysis of How Six Countries Managed Community Recovery (2017).  She is also the coauthor of Clear as Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans (2010) which examines the post-disaster recovery policies, plans and planning processes in the City of New Orleans in the first three years following Hurricane Katrina. She has an extensive publication record and is a leading author of numerous government and industry guidance documents on disaster recovery and reconstruction, community and lifeline resilience, socioeconomic implications of catastrophes, and risk-informed land use planning. She also is an accomplished executive in catastrophe risk management and insurance, most recently serving as Chief Catastrophe Response and Resiliency Officer for the California Earthquake Authority and the newly formed California Wildfire Fund. She is affiliated faculty with New York University’s Global Institute for Public Health Program on Population Impact, Recovery and Resilience and Texas A&M University’s Hazards Reduction and Recovery Center.