Shalini A. Persaud

Shalini Persaud is an emergency management and social services professional based in Los Angeles. A natural problem-solver and proven leader, her work focuses on building resilience within and among communities.

Shalini’s experience in emergency management spans the local level, higher education, and the private sector. At the City of New Orleans, she oversaw the NOLA Ready emergency preparedness campaign including: alerting & crisis communications, community engagement & outreach related to disasters, and the City’s disaster volunteerism efforts. Before that, she founded the NOLA Ready Volunteer Corps for disaster response and managed CERT. In these roles, Shalini handled public engagement & volunteer operations for multiple major hurricanes, pandemic response, major special events, and other large-scale emergencies in New Orleans. At Loyola Marymount University (LMU), she coordinated the Emergency Operations Center during emergencies, managed the ReadyLMU preparedness campaign, and oversaw the LMU Emergency Response Team program. As a consultant, she collaborated with FEMA representatives to update key guidance documents and doctrine.

As a queer woman of color and as a social worker: Shalini approaches emergency management with a justice lens, and uses a systems approach to integrate inclusivity in her programmatic work.

Prior to emergency management, Shalini worked with nonprofits to further community resilience by helping build capacity and support for local initiatives. She is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), has earned a Master of Science in Disaster Resilience, a Master of Social Work, and holds ASW and LMSW social work licenses in California and Louisiana respectively.

Shalini is currently taking a “sabbatical” from full-time employment while she explores the joys and chaos of being a new parent. Although she is not seeking full-time job opportunities, she would be open to one or two short-term remote projects.