Karissa Bergene is the Assistant Director of Research Operations at George Mason University’s (Mason) Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC) and a doctoral student in the Public Policy and Administration Program at Mississippi State University (MSU). Karissa’s current projects investigate pandemic planning policies in the U.S.; the interplay of crime patterns with internet technology; estimation of the acceleration of global coastal population settlements; and mortality patterns in the U.S. population. Her intellectual interests focus on the intersection between public administration and research and development management, international management, emergency management, public policy, technology policy, and community resilience.
Karissa holds a Master of Public Administration degree and Bachelor of Science-Criminal Justice degree from Appalachian State University. Before starting at Mason, she worked as a Research Associate II at the Social Science Research Center at MSU, as a public administrator in local government, and as an intellectual property administrator in the private sector.