Trust is a basic ingredient in every relationship. This applies to individuals, marriages, business partners, nations and the relationship of governments to individuals. Trust is the topic we are going to explore today and how it applies to emergency management and disasters. Kehinde Bolu Adesina, also known as Kenny, is a PhD researcher in Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College. His work focuses on the intersection of crisis communication, disaster communication, public trust, and misinformation. He studies how institutions, government agencies, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations communicate during high-risk events, and why those communication systems often fail even when the people inside them are working hard and acting in good faith. He is a contributor to a major NSF-funded disaster resilience project at OU, where he conducts research on how organizations share critical knowledge during emergencies, analyze misinformation patterns on social media, and support cross-sector preparedness workshops involving emergency managers, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and public health communicators. His research builds toward a framework called the “Crisis Meaning-Making Model,” which examines how communities interpret events through emotion, identity, and social context, not just official information. Originally from Nigeria, he completed his bachelor’s degree in Communication at Beijing Normal University in China and his master’s degree in Communication at the University of Illinois Springfield. Before beginning his doctoral work, he served as an Illini Science Policy Fellow and Media Production Coordinator at the Illinois Department of Agriculture, supporting communication on conservation and climate resilience. Kenny is multilingual, speaking English, Yoruba, French, and Mandarin, and brings a distinctly cross-cultural lens to questions of trust, public risk, and institutional credibility. He has a newsletter, Making Sense of Uncertainty, translating crisis communication research into practical guidance for leaders working in emergency management, public health, and organizational communication. Please visit our sponsors! L3Harris Technologies' BeOn PPT App. Learn more about this amazing product here: www.l3harris.com Visit The Readiness Lab and learn about our Next Level Emergency Management training! https://www.thereadinesslab.com/ Impulse: Bleeding Control Kits by professionals for professionals: www.dobermanemg.com/impulse Doberman Emergency Management Group provides subject matter experts in planning and training: www.dobermanemg.com Check out how you can use digital twins in your training, exercising, and planning using RSET https://rset.com/ For sponsorship requests, check out our Sponsorship Portfolio here or email us at contact@thereadinesslab.com
