Sonayia Shepherd

A truly dynamic woman, Sonayia N. Shepherd’s (Sony) career has skyrocketed during the past six years. Having authored and co-authored sixteen books, Ms. Shepherd now serves as the Incident Support Specialist for a government agency with international bioterrorism response responsibilities. Formerly, the State Bioterrorism Exercise Coordinator for the Georgia Division of Public Health, she served as a state government expert in bioterrorism preparedness and terrorism exercise initiatives. Prior to her work with the Division, she served as the State Antiterrorism Planner for the Office of the Governor-Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA), Ms. Shepherd served as a planner for multi-government issues relating to terrorism, as well as statewide programs dealing with Homeland Security. Prior to her selection as Antiterrorism Planner, Ms. Shepherd served as an Area School Safety Coordinator for the School Safety Project at GEMA where she was promoted twice, once to serve as the School Crisis Recovery Specialist and then to take on additional duties as the School Safety Grants Coordinator. As a certified grant writer, Ms. Shepherd has an 85% award rate. As the GEMA School Crisis Recovery Specialist, Ms. Shepherd coordinated recovery efforts for schools impacted by crises throughout the state. Georgia’s School Safety Project is the nation’s largest state government school safety center. Ms. Shepherd also serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Safe Havens International Inc. a non profit school safety center and on the elite consulting team for Jane’s. Ms. Shepherd has earned two graduate degrees in Clinical Psychology and Human Ecology from Cameron University in Oklahoma and earned her undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Spanish from Philips University. She is currently working on her PhD in Public Administration—Emergency Response and Policy.