BATON ROUGE, La. (March 27, 2023) – Renee Collini, Ph.D., former coastal climate resilience specialist with Mississippi State University and Sea Grant, has been named the first director of the Gulf Center for Equitable Climate Resilience.
In this newly established role, she draws from on-the-ground experience working in underserved communities and navigating federal, state, and local governmental processes and systems to help support effective and equitable climate resilience planning and action in communities across the Gulf Coast.
“Renee’s dedication to making climate adaptation and resilience accessible to all communities made her the perfect choice to direct this effort to support work currently being done along the Gulf,” said Justin Ehrenwerth, president and CEO of The Water Institute. “As the Center develops under Renee’s leadership, we will be working with, and supporting, the great work that is already being done to bring climate resilience to underserved communities.”
Prior to joining The Water Institute, Renee had a dual appointment as a coastal climate resilience specialist with Mississippi State University and Sea Grant working to connect researchers and decision-makers to get science applied to climate challenges. As the lead of the Program for Local Adaptation to Climate Effects: Sea-Level Rise, she coordinated a multi-state network of researchers, nonprofits, state and federal agencies to build tools, programs and projects that address gaps in sea level rise research and on-the-ground decisions being made in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
“Dr. Collini is a recognized leader in resilience nationally and has led development of adaptation tools that have been applied across the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the country,” said Jordan Fischbach, Ph.D., director of planning and policy research at The Water Institute.
The Gulf Center for Equitable Climate Resilience is being developed to supplement a variety of work going on now along the northern Gulf of Mexico, to lead research in new areas of resilience equity and to get that research and tools into the hands of communities facing climate challenges.
“Equitable resilience is about more than just physical safety,” Collini said. “The pursuit of resilience means considering many aspects of people’s lives such as health, community, culture, insurance, affordable housing, education, and systemic process barriers. Working with partners across the coast and through an implementation committee, the Center will work to bring additional resources and capacity building on these issues to the region.”
Some of Collini’s previous projects include working with local non-profits in east Biloxi in rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina through building leadership capacity, working with local groups in north Gulfport to understand flood issues and multiple projects helping coastal communities include sea level rise research into their local planning efforts.
Collini received her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Texas at Dallas, master’s degree in marine sciences from the University of South Alabama and her Ph.D. from Mississippi State University focused on human sciences.
-30-