2026-2027 ISCRAM Board of Directors

The ISCRAM Board of Directors is elected annually by the General Assembly, which is held during the annual ISCRAM conference. The Board includes the Executive Team, consisting of the President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary, which provides strategic leadership and manages the ISCRAM Association’s operations. Additional Board members serve as standing chairs for Membership and Member Services, Publications and Academic Standards, and Marketing and Communications.

ISCRAM Vice President | University of Münster, Germany

Adam Widera is assistant professor at the University of Muenster, Germany, and managing director of the Competence Center for Crisis Management at the European Research Center for Information Systems. After graduating in political science, philosophy, and political economy, he pursued his doctorate in information systems. His research and teaching areas cover modelling, simulation, operations and performance management in crisis management as well as the design and evaluation of information systems. Adam has been an active ISCRAM member since the year 2011, where he presented his first two ISCRAM publications. Since then, he has co-organized hands-on workshops, such as the “GDACSmobile” – Mobile Applications and Social Media in Crisis Management” in the year 2013, and regularly co-chaired different ISCRAM tracks, in particular the “Practitioner Cases and Practitioner-Centered Research” and the “Impact-driven Emergency and Crisis Management” tracks. Next to his regular participations at the ISCRAM World Conferences, which he supported as reviewer, member of the scientific or program committees, he served as the conference chair of the ISCRAM conference 2024. He has been elected to the board on the year 2025 and serves as vice president since then.

ISCRAM Treasurer | Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria

Thematic Coordinator at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH

ISCRAM Secretary | Linköping University, Sweden

Sofie Pilemalm is Professor of Informatics at the Department of Science and Technology, Linköping university where she is also head of the Centre for Advanced Research in Emergency Response (CARER). Her main research focus is volunteerism in emergency response, volunteerism and digitalized or ICT enabled co-production. She has published numerous publications on these topics, led research projects and supervised Ph. D. Students. She has attended and published at the conference on a regular basis since 2005. She was co-chair and tracks in 2009. Since 2020, she is chairing a track on volunteers in Emergency Response and Crisis Management.

ISCRAM Board Member | Utah State University, USA

Apoorva Chauhan is a Professional Practice Assistant Professor at Utah State University, USA. Her research interests include crisis informatics, social media, and educational technologies. She was elected to the ISCRAM Board of Directors in 2025 at the ISCRAM conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Apoorva has been actively involved with ISCRAM since 2015 and has published numerous papers at ISCRAM conferences, with three of her papers nominated for the Best Paper Award (ISCRAM ’16, ’18, and ’26).

Apoorva has served in a variety of leadership roles within ISCRAM, including Program Chair for ISCRAM ’25 and ’26; Track Chair for ISCRAM ’24, ’26, and ’27;  Doctoral Colloquium Chair for ISCRAM ’26; Posters and Demonstrations Chair for ISCRAM ’23 and ’24; and Social Media Chair for ISCRAM ’15, ’18, ’20 and ’21.

ISCRAM Board Member | International Union of Railways, France

Laura Petersen is a project manager and applied researcher specialising in railway security, crisis management, and critical infrastructure resilience. As a Senior Advisor in the Security Department of the International Union of Railways (UIC), she leads international initiatives and EU-funded research and innovation projects aimed at strengthening preparedness and response to threats facing the rail sector. She also coordinates the UIC Security Platform Crisis Management Working Group.

Laura was elected to the ISCRAM Board in 2025. She has been active in the ISCRAM community since 2017, attending every annual conference and regularly publishing in the proceedings. She launched the Threats and Malicious Actors track, which she chairs, was on the Programme Committee for ISCRAM 2025 and had previously co-chaired the Usability and Universal Design track.

ISCRAM Board Member | Stanford University, USA

Johannes Ponge is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His research focuses on simulation-supported information systems for public health decision-making and crisis management. In particular, he studies how population-level interventions can protect public health while accounting for broader social, educational, and economic effects. He holds a doctorate from the University of Münster, where his work combined information systems and infectious disease modeling. Johannes has been involved with ISCRAM since 2024 as an organizer, author, presenter, and reviewer. He served as Workshop Chair for ISCRAM 2024 in Münster, presented his research at ISCRAM 2025 in Halifax, and currently serves as Publications and Academic Standards Chair on the ISCRAM Association Board.

ISCRAM Board Member | Institut der Feuerwehr Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

Current main research interests in crisis management: Crisis Management of Public Administrations, high-reliability networks, event safety, cultural competence