What We Do

ASAP is thrilled to join the Field Liaison Team for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF). Throwe Environmental, LLC leads the Team, which also includes Native American Fish and Wildlife Society (NAFWS).  As Field Liaisons, Throwe, ASAP, and NAFW will support NCRF applicants across the U.S. throughout 2023. The Team…

Mentee Revathi Veriah is an Urban Planner and Policy Analyst for AECOM in their Urbanism and Planning Practice in Dallas, Texas. She is passionate about sustainable development, resilience, planning for climate change and equitable community development. Revathi brings her expertise to support public sector clients in various projects, including climate action plans, sustainability studies, economic…

At ASAP our core values are trust, reciprocity, member leadership, and something for everyone (but not everything for everyone). But what is trust? Trust is a gift given between people or institutions. It extends beyond common interests and shared goals to being mutually vulnerable to one another. Trust is a deep and powerful bond. It…

Mentee Jayla Lundstrom is an Economic Development Coordinator with Salt Lake County where she works on EPA Brownfields programs to assess and remediate environmental contamination in underserved neighborhoods. Prior, she worked as an AmeriCorps VISTA for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium where she supported Alaska Native communities in securing grants to understand climate impacts…

Peer Learning is at the heart of the ASAP Network! Welcome to the monthly Peer Learning Round-Up! Let’s recap the last opportunities for peer learning at ASAP: Policy Practice Group Our September Policy Practice Group meeting hosted a peer learning session on our third policy priority, “Require all physical and social infrastructure decisions to consider…

Mentee Sidney Chen is an associate consultant at WSP USA with an educational background in development practice with a focus on sustainability and climate change. Sidney supports clients by providing strategic and analytical support. Specifically, he helps clients assess business risks and opportunities associated with the physical impacts of climate change and the transition to…

Mentee Chris Bobryk is a Planner at the Clinton River Watershed Council in Rochester Hills, Michigan. He leads a variety of programs that help communities plan stormwater management designs and establish long-term community connections to natural resources. Mentor Anna Marandi is a Program Officer at PEW Charitable Trusts working on state-level flood resilience planning and…

Katie Lund is a Master’s of Environmental Management (MEM) candidate at the Yale School of the Environment. At the beginning of the ASAP Mentorship Program, Katie was working as a Community Resilience Specialist with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). For four years, she supported Alaska Native communities in planning, developing, and implementing community-driven…

Join ASAP’s first-ever giving campaign and hear from ASAP members on how the Network inspires them and has been a driving force in advancing their career. The campaign ends September 18, make your contribution today! This week hear from ASAP’s President Emily Wasley on what makes ASAP a place we all love. How did you find ASAP?…

Mentee Alec Rodriguez is a Water Resources Engineer at Atkins in Denver, Colorado, where he works on water resources and climate resilience projects. He also has experience with H&H modeling, emergency management planning, and water utility risk and resilience assessments. In addition to his day job, he is the Co-Founder and Operations Chair of the…

Mentee Danielle Curri is a graduate of North Carolina State University with a degree in Civil Engineering. During her time in school, she spent three years serving as the lead researcher on a project developing an optimization model to assist with sustainable industrial development. This project helped spark her passion for sustainable infrastructure. Over the…

Join ASAP’s first-ever giving campaign and hear from ASAP members on how the Network inspires them and has been a driving force in advancing their career. The campaign ends September 18, make your contribution today! Meet ASAP’s President-Elect Julia Kim and understand how she came to love ASAP: How did you find ASAP? I was…

Mentee Alli Wenman is an Outreach Specialist at the UW-Madison Arboretum, where she manages a project aimed to develop the skills of local advocates involved in healthy stormwater action through outreach, general education and formal training, and small grant awards. Alli holds her B.S. (’16) in botany and her M.S. (’21) in environmental conservation, both…

Priority #1 is to Establish Standards for Climate Data and Require use of Future Climate Projections. As part of the 2022 goals for the Policy Practice Member-Led Interest Group (“PPG”) a series of meetings are planned to address each of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals’ (“ASAP”) policy priorities and develop actionable plans to be…

Introduction American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) is the professional home for close to 1,000 individuals and over 45 organizations – collectively employing over 100,000 workers – across North America. ASAP members represent all sectors of society and dozens of industries. In the past year, ASAP members have seen increased awareness of climate impacts and…

Mentee Jomar Rodriguez Ventura currently works as an Environmental Justice (EJ) Educator/Climate-Resilience Coordinator with Mycelium Youth Network (MYN). Through this role, he facilitates learning experiences in EJ curricula such as “Climate Justice 101,” “Clean Air is a Right,” and “Water is Life” for youth in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also serves as a…

ASAP’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Fund has turned one! The fund which was seeded by a contribution from ASAP staff members in 2021, has been a success in providing funding to several individuals identifying as Black People, Indigenous people, and people of color and also individuals demonstrating financial need. Following a review of the…

About the Mentees and Mentor MENTEE Cailin Notch is a Community Resilience Planner at WRA Environmental Consultants in the San Francisco Bay Area with an extensive background in land use planning and community engagement. Her areas of expertise include development and design review, environmental review, meeting facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and project management. Previously, Cailin built…

About the Mentee and Mentor Mentee Sophia Chan is graduating with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow developing polymeric materials for gas separations like carbon capture. While at Columbia, she taught ESL high schoolers about renewable energy topics, co-founded her department’s Diversity, Equity,…

Written from the perspective of Erin Bryan, a Mentee in the ASAP Mentorship Program and Madeleine Charney, a Mentor. Was it by chance or design that we live in Central and Western Massachusetts respectively? Either way, we’re glad! Connected by proximate bioregions (Connecticut River Valley and Worcester Plateau) means we are immersed in overlapping culture,…

Meet Mentee Bethany N. Bella (she/her), a passionate sustainability and climate-action advocate based in Columbus, Ohio, Mentee Emily Schoerning, Ph.D., the founder of American Resiliency https://www.americanresiliency.org/, a nonprofit bringing information and adaptation services to agricultural and working-class communities, and Mentor Jessica Cahail is a Technical Product Manager with Cervest, a UK-based B Corp that aims…

Julia Nassar, a Mentee in the ASAP Mentorship Program is employed as a Senior Analyst at the Cadmus Group where she specializes in climate adaptation and resilience. Julia supports local and state governments, such as Boston, the District of Columbia, Fairfax County, and the State of New York to enhance their resiliency through strategic climate…

Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), in partnership with the American Society for Adaptation Professionals (ASAP), has announced a new program to enhance climate adaptation in the Upper Texas Gulf Coast. Leading with Equity in Adaptation Practice (LEAP) aims to strengthen community-led climate change adaptation initiatives through partnerships, collaboration, and capacity-building. Alongside partners, ASAP and HARC…

Mentee Yilin Lai Giltinan is a community-adaptation-planner with a focus on transferring climate data and a community’s adapting capacity into an integrated Urban-Heat-Island adaptation strategy and urban design. Yilin has a background in landscape architecture and received a MS.c in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. During this time she…

This is a featured blog by ASAP Member Lisa Churchill. “Many of us can point to a time in our lives that influenced what we might do when we grew up. For me, it began with a box of 430-million-year-old fossils that my parents collected when they lived in Wisconsin. I was around five years old when…

Mentee Cameron (Cami) Ramey has a background in climate adaptation, community resilience, and climate change communications. Cami has supported a number of nonprofits with policy analysis and research at the nexus of adaptation, urban planning, and environmental justice. Cami is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Environment Review, where she manages a 12-student writing team that…

This is a featured blog from ASAP Member Emily Schoerning, Founder of non-profit American Resiliency. What are Your Knowledge Assumptions? My name is Emily Schoerning. As a researcher in science education, I’ve spent years studying how we acquire knowledge, and what unexpected barriers make it harder for us to learn new things. One of the…

As a social impact network, ASAP relies on our members as leaders, partners, and collaborators in everything we do. Your participation in the member survey cultivates and affirms the essential elements of network culture that we strive to nurture –reciprocity, open access, something for every member, and, most importantly, trust– while also helping us shape ASAP’s…

Two ASAP Projects Lay the Foundation for Socially Just and Environmentally Responsible Growth  By Susan S. Ekoh, Adaptation Fellow, American Society of Adaptation Professionals Over the past two years, ASAP facilitated two projects to advance climate migration practice and research, focused on the Great Lakes Region. One project brought together climatologists, demographers, and housing researchers…

The Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit is Here! Are you struggling to attract investment for your climate resilience projects? Do you want to use innovative finance tools but worry they may carry extra risks or costs? Are you looking to learn how and why to center social equity in your climate resilience projects? As climate impacts intensify…

By: Camilla Gardner, Urban Sustainability Directors Network and T. Jonathan Lee,  Climate Resilience Consulting The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), a US law that went into effect on November 15, 2021, serves as a pivotal moment in local government resilience finance. Because of IIJA, it is no longer true in all cases that “there…

On January 20, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), along with a bipartisan group of seven colleagues, introduced the National Climate Adaptation and Resilience Strategy Act (H.R.6461/S.3531).  How Can you Help ASAP? You can learn more about the bill and why ASAP is excited about it in our statement of support.  If…

On January 20, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) along with a bipartisan group of seven colleagues introduced the National Climate Adaptation and Resilience Strategy Act (H.R.6461/S.3531). You can learn more about the bill and why ASAP is excited about it in our statement of support. ASAP is encouraging members to reach…

The 5th National Climate Assessment Chapters Engagement Meetings are now scheduled and open to the public! Public engagement sessions will take place between January and February 2022. All ASAP members are encouraged to attend at least one NCA Chapter Meeting to provide their input and expertise on this important national resource. Space is limited at…

Members of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) applaud the introduction of the National Climate Adaptation and Resilience Strategy Act (NCARS). This is a highly functional piece of legislation that would end the ad hoc nature of climate adaptation planning at the national level and form a dependable and consistent basis for us to…

ASAP is an anti-racist organization. That means we are finding and rooting out racism in our network and the adaptation field. And it means we are prioritizing accessibility and inclusion in ASAP for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or other person of color (BIPOC).  We are asking for your support by completing a short…

Mentee Laura Lengnick is an award-winning soil scientist with 30 years of experience putting sustainable values into action in food and farming.  She contributed to the 3rd National Climate Assessment as the lead author of the USDA report, Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation.  In 2015, Laura founded Cultivating Resilience,…

At ASAP, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time for us to put more than just words behind our racial justice goals: it is a day to ACT. MLK’s Dream remains a powerful vision of the just and equitable world we want to live in. Take action with us to build that world. We…

February 7, 2022 | 11:00am – 3:30pm ET   Please join the authors of the Fifth National Climate Assessment for a virtual workshop to share your thoughts on the climate change-related issues most important to include in the Adaptation chapter. We really need your input!  The workshop is free and open to the public. The information gathered will help…

Get involved in ASAP Member Led Interest Groups in 2022.The votes are in and we are excited to announce the 2022 ASAP Member Led Interest Groups!  Policy Practice Group Private Sector Adaptation Professionals Professional Opportunities in Adaptation Convening Climate Collaborators (webpage coming soon!) A big THANK YOU to everyone who submitted one of this year’s…

Inspired by members driven to create a tangible change, ASAP launched our Justice, Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion Fund in April 2021. The Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund provides financial support for ASAP members to engage in professional development and capacity-building activities as well as compensate people for their time as they contribute their…

As part of a pilot program, ASAP supported three microgrant projects to catalyze members’ collaborative, place-based climate change adaptation work and stimulate grassroots involvement in the ASAP network. The three project teams, from Asheville, NC; Los Angeles, CA; and the U.S. Southwest, have been hard at work since launching their projects this fall. Read on…

ASAP is excited to kick off the 2022 Mentorship Program with the leadership of our amazing program team leaders. Welcome to the team, Emma, Kim and Sarah! Interested in learning more about the Mentorship Program? Email us! mentorship@adaptpros.org Emma Cutler is a system dynamics analyst with the International Institute for Sustainable Development(IISD) and is based…

This blog was written collaboratively by ASAP members active in the Policy Practice Group. A lot has happened on U.S. federal adaptation policy since ASAP published its Policy priorities in March: 20+ federal agencies published adaptation plans, the Securities and Exchange Commission gathered input on climate risk disclosure, and FEMA announced the first recipients of…

ASAP is committed to creating equitable access to adaptation and resilience jobs, ensuring quality job performance, and promoting consistent adaptation and resilience outcomes from the work that adaptation professionals perform. And while adaptation jobs are rapidly expanding, we hope that demand for the work will grow even faster.  That’s why, more than ever, we need…

Mentee Annabel Cryan is committed to building a world capable of withstanding the uncertainties of our changing climate where both society and the environment thrive. She is passionate about strategic thinking and new technology that builds more resilient urban centers and business communities. She has spent the past 2.5 years working at the American Flood…

Mentor Chris Choo works at Marin County’s Department of Public Works. Her efforts support Marin Communities with sea level rise, flood protection and watershed restoration. She manages BayWAVE, the sea level rise planning and adaptation program for the bay shoreline in Marin. Marin is among the most vulnerable counties in California. Chris leads the work…

Mentee Mary Hannah Smith is an urban planner hoping to help communities proactively adapt to climate change. She currently works as an Associate Resiliency and Environmental Planner at the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission (CMRPC), serving 39 suburban and rural towns along with the City of Worcester.  She holds a B.A. in Global Studies, a…

By Dakota Fisher and Beth Gibbons Dakota Fisher is a Community Planner working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The views presented in this newsletter are his opinion and may not reflect the opinions of FEMA. Beth Gibbons is the Executive Director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals.  Adaptation is, and must continue…

Mentee Carolyn Heaps is an environmental project manager and planning professional who is passionate about supporting communities to adapt to the challenges of climate change. She envisions a future in which urban environments support each of their residents to thrive under changing climate conditions. Carolyn graduated from the University of Virginia with a master’s degree…

Mentee Joe Lampe is an urban planner and leads projects ranging from transportation policy plans and airport master plans, to equitable public engagement efforts and statewide freight plans. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Joe has degrees in Environmental Science and Spanish from Allegheny College, and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from the University…

Mentee Kate McClure is a Coastal Climate Specialist with the University of Maryland Sea Grant Extension Program. In this role, she assists residents and decision-makers in coastal communities throughout Maryland with understanding and preparing for the effects of climate change, with a focus on flooding due to sea level rise, precipitation, and storm events. Prior…

Mentee Karen Buchsbaum has a passion for food, community, and climate.  She has over 15 years of experience in education, program management, outreach and communications and enjoys engaging with community leaders, students, non-profits, farmers, and the public around issues of nutrition, agriculture, and sustainability. She holds a B.A. in Biology, and an M.S. in Environmental…

By James Sedlak, ASAP Member My name is James Sedlak, a former wildland firefighter turned climate adaptation professional. Since my last fire season, I’ve been more involved in the climate migration field by joining the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP)’s related programs and volunteering for a new think tank which I am excited to…

Mentee Isabela Schultz (Bela) is passionate about every intersection between climate and people, so much so that during her undergraduate career she designed her own major in Environmental Sociology. She has dipped her toes into many different sectors and pathways to change, including doing research for Project Drawdown, grassroots organizing for the Sunrise Movement, and…

Mentee Emma Diamond is a Master’s of Public Administration student graduating from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2022. Currently, she is working at the Washington State Department of Commerce as an Energy Policy intern. Emma is interested in local and state government, environmental policy, climate adaptation,…

Community Resilience and Access Planning for CA Parklands Questions or want to learn more? Reach out to Gabriel Varela With the assistance of an ASAP microgrant, Climate Resolve is currently working on a Community Resilience and Access plan for the Baldwin Hills Conservancy Parklands in Los Angeles, California. Climate Resolve’s work is one of ASAP’s…

Mentee Sarah Collins is a mother, educator, researcher, and scholar pursuing dual master’s degrees at the University of Michigan. She seeks to blend her Environment & Sustainability M.S. and Educational Studies M.A. toward addressing education for sustainability in the United States by helping local and state governments build robust adaptation plans that include how we…

Mentee Sarah Huang is a Program Coordinator at Shared-Use Mobility Center where she supports implementation and evaluation of the Clean Mobility Options Voucher Pilot program. With a strong interest in service and leadership, Sarah was previously a CivicSpark AmeriCorps Fellow and helped administer the program prior to her current position. As a Southern California native…

Photo credit: Ari Sahagún/Southwest Practitioners Adaptation Network The Southwest Practitioners Adaptation Network (SPAN) is a network of networks that builds capacity for actionable climate adaptation solutions and SPANs the boundaries between science and decision-making. By connecting and leveraging existing networks, SPAN links climate adaptation and assessment practitioners with resources, support, and knowledge to build stronger…

Mentee Marie McNamara recently joined the RMI India team and is helping develop decarbonization strategies for electricity and mobility systems to support federal and state governments in India. Prior to joining RMI, she worked as a civil engineer for a municipal engineering firm. Through this experience, she developed an appreciation for how analytical research and policy…

Mentee Ana Mejia  has 3 years experience in the adaptation field working with nonprofits and natural resource agencies. She serves as the Environment Organizer with the Vermont Releaf Collective working to empower and elevate the voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color on environmental issues so that every member of the BIPOC community can thrive…

Mentee Lucas Do’s goal is to develop climate data into actionable, localized recommendations for climate adaptation. After receiving his BA, he served as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer with an environmental justice nonprofit in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky; this experience made clear the wide range of voices and issues that interact in the climate resilience…

Mentee Veronica Correa is a rising second-year master’s student at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. She is especially interested in urbanization, environmental behavior change, and how to effectively communicate environmental issues to diverse audiences. She previously studied at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she was active in student journalism.…

To Start… We, the ASAP Climate Migration and Managed Retreat member-led interest group, are excited to share below our updates and highlights from the past few months. We’ve seen the topic get elevated in various forms such as the Biden Administrations’ Executive Order 14013, the subsequent letter from the Mayor’s Migration Council and the related…

Mentee Linda Reid has successfully merged her lifelong love of the Great Lakes with her professional life as the owner of Water365, LLC, where she supports freshwater sustainability and climate resilience efforts through capability and capacity development, technical consulting, and coaching.  A lawyer and educator with an entrepreneurial spirit, Linda is an Envision Sustainability Professional…

In the spring of 2020, ASAP began working with partners across the Great Lakes to explore what’s needed to prepare the region to receive climate migrants. This work is bringing together disparate voices and perspectives – from demographers and climatologists to natural resource managers and community based organizations – and laying the foundations for socially…

By: Beth Gibbons, ASAP Executive Director On April 14 Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (NJ-12) invited me to testify before the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology. Speaking alongside three other experts, my role was to share expert insights on the needs of climate adaptation professionals, recent advances in the adaptation field, and what our community…

Mentee JUANITA BALLESTEROS comes from a multidisciplinary background, having recently graduated with a Master of City Planning and Master of Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley, with prior training as an architect from her undergraduate education at MIT. She is interested in the intersections of planning and design within urban spaces, pulling from multiple lenses to…

We are writing this letter today to affirm life and the work that needs to happen to preserve it, especially in communities at the forefront of adaptation. Our profession is one that both cares for and celebrates the natural world and life in all of its forms; as adaptation professionals, one of our main concerns…

The Policy Practice Group is excited to launch our first quarterly policy digest! Each quarter, the Policy Practice Group will send out a policy round up including updates shared by members during monthly Policy Practice Group meetings. These policy updates are also collected live during meetings and can be found on the groups’ Policy Tracker.…

Updated ASAP Professional Guidance Resources better integrate justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion concepts and language Updated versions of the ASAP Code of Conduct and Professional Ethics, Living Guide to the Principles of Climate Change Adaptation, and ASAP Professional Guidance Resources Glossary are now available in the ASAP Resource Library! Key changes include: Revised language in…

ASAP is supporting three microgrant projects to catalyze members’ collaborative, place-based climate change adaptation work and stimulate grassroots involvement in the ASAP network. The three project teams have been hard at work since launching their projects this fall. Read on to see where they are now and how you can get involved!  One of  the…

We are honored to announce that ASAP has received the Climate Change Business Journal Business Achievement Award for Advancing Best Practices – Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience! This award recognizes ASAP’s cutting-edge work on climate migration and managed retreat (CMMR) via our CMMR Member Led Interest Group and our NY State Climate Migration Accelerator. “This award is an…

With President Biden’s Administration cabinet almost fully confirmed, including a strong climate team, ASAP members are seizing our moment to accelerate adaptation policy. The White House team is taking a “whole of government approach” to climate or what adaptation professionals call “mainstreaming” climate information and adaptation action (see ASAP’s Living Guide to the Principles of…

Communities, Climate Action and New U.S. Leadership Webinar | April 2, 1:00 p.m. ET | Free | Register hereYou are invited to a unique online discussion with David Hayes, Special Assistant to President Biden for Climate Policy. This webinar is co-hosted by the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, the Tribal Climate Health Project, and the…

This Black History Month, ASAP is celebrating the excellence that our Black members bring to the field. Among them are Shameika Hanson, Community Protection Specialist at The Nature Conservancy, and Emma Tipton, Policy Associate at the American Meteorological Society. We’re honored to share their reflections with our community.  Read on to learn how they are…

This month we’re celebrating the hope and opportunity that a wave of new leadership brings. We couldn’t be more excited to announce that, effective February 1, Emily Wasley will become the new president of ASAP’s Board of Directors. An active ASAP member since 2012, Emily herself is hardly “new.” But her fresh ideas about how…

Erika Bierschbach Austin Energy, Vice President, Energy Market Operations & Resource Planning Erika is advancing the City of Austin’s goal of providing carbon-free energy to residents through innovative and bold programs.  Erika Bierschbach has been instrumental in advancing the City of Austin’s goal of providing 100% carbon-free energy to residents by 2035. Carbon-free electricity is…

Between 2016 and 2020, ASAP members from for-profit companies increased from 15% to almost 30%. According to Climate Change Business Journal, climate adaptation and resilience services market growth has been in the double digits since 2018 and is forecast to continue its growth at least 12-15% per year to at least 2022. Now is a…

INTRODUCTION As communities, ecosystems, and economies are pummelled by worsening climate disasters, the world is opening its eyes to an unavoidable consequence: human migration. But researchers and practitioners are just beginning to think about where people will move to — and how to prepare so-called climate-receiving communities. We must act now to establish the foundation…

ASAP is excited to kick off the 2021 Mentorship Program with the leadership of our new program co-chairs. Welcome to the team, Kim and Tori!  Tori Griffin started her educational career at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI studying Marketing and Communications. Her studies sparked an interest in the decision-making process, but she longed for…

Very few events in the world are as influential as the U.S. federal election, and this election is like none other. Throughout our history we have seen policies implemented –or removed– to have hindered progress to slow climate change, but these past four years have been brutal not only in our approach to science but…

Mentee Sam Horowitz is an MEM candidate at the Yale School of the Environment. He was born and raised in NYC, where his experience with Superstorm Sandy sparked a passion for climate adaptation and resilience. He has advised the DNC Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis, written policy for a 2020 presidential campaign, and…

When the pandemic hit in March, ASAP was gearing up for an inspiring season of Regional Adaptation Fora and Regional Adaptation Leadership Award (RALA) ceremonies. While it quickly became clear this was not the year for in-person conferences, carrying forward the spirit of the RALA – strong leadership that inspires action and cultivates grounded hope…

ASAP is thrilled to highlight the incredible accomplishments of the 2020 New England Regional Adaptation Leadership Award Finalists. Thank you to our nominators and selection committee members who contributed the content for these highlights. Please join us for the awards ceremony celebrating these finalists and our finalists from the Carolinas live on the ASAP Facebook…

ASAP is thrilled to highlight the incredible accomplishments of the 2020 Carolinas Regional Adaptation Leadership Award Finalists. Thank you to our nominators and selection committee members who contributed the content for these highlights. Please join us for the awards ceremony celebrating these finalists and our finalists from New England live on the ASAP Facebook page…

Mentee Kristin Kelleher was impelled to enter the environmental field by watching the impact of sea-level rise on her hometown, and further developed her commitment to environmental policy while working as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts State House. After the intense storms of the winter of 2018, Kristin led the Massachusetts Businesses Acting on…

Mentee Sara Papanikolaou is a graduate student in the Climate and Energy Policy program at Johns Hopkins University, where she is completing her Masters thesis examining applications for renewable energy within the adaptation space.  She is the Washington Campaign Organizer for Oceana, and also runs a local 350.org chapter, 350 Eastside, near Seattle, where she…

Marlena Byrne, Katie Spidalieri, Annie Bennett, Ned Gardiner, Jim Fox, and Aashka Patel contributed to this story. As Gulf Coast communities rise from Hurricane Laura, ASAP members share how strong storms can give way to strong leadership.  When Hurricane Florence pummelled North Carolina in 2018, on the heels of 2016’s Hurricane Matthew, attitudes about climate…

Mentee Jessica Robbins is an environmental planner based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to joining her current workplace, Jessica worked with a wide variety of environmental organizations tackling such topics as science education, environmental decision-making and behavior, and energy efficiency evaluation. Jessica obtained her Master’s degree from University of Michigan, where she conducted…

ASAP is hosting a year long webinar program highlighting how partnerships lead to innovative adaptation action across the United States.  The ASAP Board of Directors is spearheading this new initiative, with leadership from Jennifer Jurado (Broward County), Jessica Grannis (Audubon), and Emily Wasley (WSP). Adaptation Co-Creation Series highlights innovation through examples of on-the-ground practice in adaptation through a variety of sectors and regions.…

Mentee Kira Rib is a graduate student at the University of Michigan, pursuing her MPH in Environmental Health Promotion and Policy. Her experience in sustainable agriculture and food justice across the country helped her to develop a passion for the impact of climate change on the resilience of food systems. Critically examining the intersection of…

Want Precise Flood Risk Projections? Account for Adaptation. First Street Foundation recently made headlines with findings from their new flood model and the bottom line is stark: many more properties are at risk of flooding than previously thought. The innovative model takes into account future climate conditions including increased rainfall, sea level rise, and increased sea…

Mentee Isaac A. Gendler is a Climate Adaptation and Housing Policy Researcher as well as a White Paper Writer for Abundant Housing LA. He is currently working on a research paper analyzing the effects of the Bay Area housing crisis on regional wildfire vulnerability. In his spare time, Isaac likes to write on his daily…

Mentee Joanna Parkman is a Master of Environmental Management student at Duke University, where she studies coastal resilience and nature-based solutions to sea level rise. She’s also pursuing a Natural Hazards Resilience Certificate at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Department of City and Regional Planning. This summer, Joanna is working as a Coastal Resilience…

Mentee Caroline Resor is a Strategy Associate for the American Flood Coalition in Washington, DC. Prior to AFC, Caroline worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on a machine learning flood model for Ellicott City. Previously, she was a Senior Analyst with sustainable infrastructure investor Hannon Armstrong. She worked with wind and solar energy companies…

Mentee Kyle Sullivan is a Climate Adaptation Fellow at ASAP and a public health advocate living in Southeast Michigan. Kyle built their MPH in environmental health promotion and policy on work integrating climate information and social equity principles into public health assessments and interventions. They focused on climate hazards in the Great Lakes region, including…

The space where innovation and climate resilience meet Beginning in June 2020 ASAP will host a year long webinar program highlighting how partnerships lead to innovative adaptation action across the United States.  The ASAP Board of Directors is spearheading this new initiative, with leadership from Jennifer Jurado (Broward County), Jessica Grannis (Audubon), and Emily Wasley…

Mentee Desmond Kirwan is a graduate student at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability with a concentration in Behavior, Education, and Communication. He has a longstanding passion for conservation work and human relationships with the natural world. His current research aims to enhance civic resilience to climate change in underserved communities through…