About Us

Founders

WhereIsTheAED.org was founded by Gianna Digiaro, an incoming junior at Mira Costa High School, and Josh Carlisle, a senior at Los Gatos High School. The two met during the UC Irvine Summer Surgery Program, where they both became CPR and Basic Life Support (BLS) certified. During their training, they discovered a troubling reality: while AEDs can increase survival rates to as high as 90% when used within the first few minutes of sudden cardiac arrest, most students don't know what an AED is, or where to find one.

Determined to understand the extent of the problem, Gianna surveyed students at her own high school. The results were alarming: 85% of students did not know what an AED was, and 98% could not identify the location of one on campus. That knowledge gap inspired the creation of WhereIsTheAED.org, a student-led initiative dedicated to increasing AED awareness, improving emergency preparedness, and ensuring that every student knows how to respond when every second matters.

Nursing Director

Emily Caldwell is a board certified acute care nurse practitioner that has a career rooted in cardiovascular disease management since 2002. She works as a nocturnist provider for the advanced heart failure, electrophysiology, and interventional service lines at Keck Medicine of USC. Additionally, she serves as volunteer clinical faculty at UCLA School of Nursing. Outside of her role caring for those with the most advanced cardiac disease, she passionately advocates for primary prevention through community education focused on identification of cardiac risk, preparedness, early recognition and lifestyle change.