Dr. April Naturale

Dr. April Naturale Bio

Dr. April Naturale [she/her] is a traumatic stress specialist focused on behavioral health preparedness and response to disasters, terrorism, and incidents of mass violence. She has provided disaster response training and consultation throughout the United States and internationally for over 25 years.

Dr. Naturale led Project Liberty, the New York mental health response to 9/11/01, and was the architect of the Boston Marathon bombing behavioral health response. She has worked in over 40 natural disasters and 14 mass violence events in the U.S. alone and authored over twenty articles on these subjects. Her dissertation focused on secondary traumatic stress in the mental health responder population. In 2022, Dr. Naturale was appointed by the U.S. Attorney General to join a team of subject matter experts to conduct an After-Action Review of the law enforcement response to the May 24, 2022, Uvalde, Texas, Robb Elementary School shooting.

Dr. Naturale helped launch the original National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, now known as the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and the Disaster Distress Helpline. She has trained psychologists in the Ukraine Military Service; crisis counselors for the Ukrainian Suicide Lifeline; humanitarian aid workers for the European Union; and most recently, Israeli and Palestinian educators and counselors caring for community members impacted by war. She also helped launch the European Centre of Expertise for Victims of Terrorism.

Dr. Naturale continues to provide consultation and training in the field as well as virtually across the globe and currently teaches at Tulane University in its Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy.