Kristi L. Koenig, MD, FACEP

Professor of Emergency Medicine and Co-Director of the EMS and Disaster Medical Sciences
Fellowship at the University of California at Irvine, School of Medicine

Dr. Koenig is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of Homeland Security, Disaster and Emergency Medicine, Emergency Management, and Emergency Medical Services. A systems thinker, with strong academic and health policy background, she is widely published and sought internationally for lecture-presentations. She has been an invited consultant to the Joint Commission, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), State of California, and Government of Taiwan among others. A board-certified Emergency Physician, she serves as the Director of Public Health Preparedness for the University of California at Irvine since October 2004.

In April 1999, the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) appointed Dr. Koenig for a 5-year term as National Director of the Emergency Management Strategic Healthcare Group and Principal Advisor on Emergency Management and Disaster Medicine to the Under Secretary for Health where she led Emergency Management for the Nation’s largest integrated healthcare system. She concurrently held a position as Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Prior to joining VA, Dr. Koenig was Director of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

In 1996, Dr. Koenig was invited to be Co-Director of the Accident and Emergency Department at St. George’s Hospital National Health Service Trust in London, where she concurrently was Director of Undergraduate Medical Student Education and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of London.

Throughout her career Dr. Koenig has held appointments on multiple committees and boards, including the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine Board of Directors, the Joint Commission’s Committee on Healthcare Safety, Chair of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s Disaster Medicine Task Force, and the American College of Emergency Physicians liaison to the FEMA. She is Senior Health Policy Advisor for the Institute for Global and Regional Readiness in Washington, DC and Consultant to the American Medical Association on Core Disaster Life Support.

Dr. Koenig has published two books and Cambridge University Press invited her to write the definitive text on Disaster Medicine. She has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, including papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine and in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Koenig also has been Associate Editor for Academic Emergency Medicine and is a senior editor for Journal Watch Emergency Medicine. She has received several research grants, including a National Science Foundation award to study hospital evacuation after California’s 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

With expertise in surge capacity, disaster triage, and medical response to weapons of mass destruction, Dr. Koenig has delivered nearly 300 invited lectures in more than a dozen countries. She was an invited visiting professor in India, providing training on disaster and terrorism management just a few months prior to the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. Dr. Koenig is Affiliate Faculty at the University of California at Los Angeles’ Center for Public Health and Disasters, the Urban Water Research Center, and internationally for the European Master of Disaster Medicine (Visiting Professor of the Universita degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy and of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium). She is a National American College of Emergency Physicians Media Spokesperson, is regularly featured in the news, and has provided Federal Congressional Testimony on Public Health Preparedness.

An honors graduate in applied mathematics from the University of California at San Diego, Dr. Koenig received her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and completed an Emergency Medicine Residency at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, serving as Chief Resident in her final year. A fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, Dr. Koenig is currently Professor of Emergency Medicine and Co-Director of the EMS and Disaster Medical Sciences Fellowship at the University of California at Irvine, School of Medicine.