Allison DeJong, AICP, is a planner and policy researcher at the Water Institute, where she supports people and communities adapting to climate change using frameworks and approaches from urban planning and economics. She has over 14 years of experience in planning and policy research, working across disciplines to achieve material gains for coastal residents, businesses, and communities.

At the Institute, Allison leads and supports planning and policy research projects for urban resilience, climate mitigation and adaptation, water resources, alternative valuations of natural resources, hazard mitigation, risk and vulnerability, and more. She is an experienced facilitator, presenter, and advisor, translating technical and scientific information for regulatory, programmatic, and decision-making applications.

Prior to joining the Institute, Allison worked for Propeller in New Orleans, where she coached small businesses in the coastal and urban storm water sectors to define their market opportunities, increase revenue and contracts, and grow their social and environmental impact. She spent six years as a planner at GCR, Inc., in New Orleans, where she was a key member of the community resilience team that worked with states and municipalities to secure $240 million in funding from HUD’s National Disaster Resilience Competition. She developed benefit-cost analyses for those proposals and created analyses of demographic and labor statistics for a wide range of plans and studies, including public transit, economic development, and small area plans. She also co-authored the City of New Orleans’ first-ever economic development strategy, ProsperityNOLA.

Allison holds a BA in Economics from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from Louisiana State University. She is certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners.