Author archives

Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett is a Statistical Journalist at The Markup. She is passionate about empowering communities with the data they need to drive positive change; her projects focus on wielding statistics to help expose injustice and guide policies to address inequality. Natasha has more than six years of experience in statistical research and has worked in a wide variety of application fields, including climate, public health, and finance. She specializes in machine learning methods and is passionate about seeking ways to help decode algorithm’s black boxes so we can better understand how they make decisions. Before joining The Markup, Natasha was a Data Scientist at the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research where her analyses worked to reduce global food insecurity and help subsistence farmers adapt to climate change. Some of her other statistical investigations have uncovered bias in U.S. public health initiatives and revealed the failure of government programs to mitigate deforestation. Natasha studied Statistics and Data Science at Yale University.

How to Sign Up for Local Emergency Alerts Before Natural Disasters Strike

Natural disasters have affected nearly 90 percent of U.S. counties since 2013, and while many households know about preparing emergency kits, a recent FEMA survey found a large drop in how many people are signed up to receive emergency alerts and warnings. Early warning systems save lives during disasters. To ensure you can receive these warnings via your phone, text, or email, Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett recommends and walks you through turning on your phone’s alerts and signing up for your local government’s emergency alert system.

Subjects: Disaster Planning