Jainey Bavishi will explore how local leadership and civic collaboration are reshaping climate action
Jainey Bavishi, former deputy administrator of NOAA and
former director of New York City’s Office of Climate Resiliency, will discuss
“From the Ground Up: Communities Leading the Next Chapter of Climate
Resilience” for the Charles
and Marie Fish Lecture hosted by the URI Graduate School of
Oceanography. 
Costly repairs to the Charlestown Breachway are
an example of the price of climate change.
Photo by Will Collette
The event, scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 6 p.m., will be presented in-person at the URI Narragansett Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium, 215 South Ferry Road in Narragansett. The lecture is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.
As climate impacts accelerate and uncertainty grows, communities across the country are redefining what it means to be resilient. In a fireside chat, Bavishi will explore how equity, local leadership and civic collaboration form the backbone of effective climate action, even as traditional systems face strain.Moderated by Elin Torell, director of the URI Coastal Institute, the conversation will draw on lessons from city halls, federal agencies, and frontline communities to highlight how resilience can endure and evolve from the ground up.
Bavishi is a nationally recognized expert in the field of
climate adaptation and resilience who has spent her career reimagining how
cities and communities prepare for climate change. She most recently served as
assistant secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and deputy
administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
where she provided agency-wide direction for climate resilience, fisheries, and
coastal and ocean programs, including efforts related to NOAA’s implementation
of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.
Previously, Bavishi acted as director of New York City’s
Office of Climate Resiliency, overseeing the implementation of climate
resilience strategies for the nation’s largest city. She also worked as
associate director for climate preparedness at the White House Council on
Environmental Quality. Her work connects national policy to neighborhood-scale
action, helping shape a more just and durable approach to resilience. Bavishi
holds a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and a bachelor’s degree in public policy and cultural anthropology from Duke
University.
The Charles and Marie Fish Lecture is an annual public
lecture endowed by the family of Charles and Marie Fish. The Fishes established
a marine biological program at the University of Rhode Island in 1935 and
eventually a graduate program in oceanography at the Narragansett Marine
Laboratory, which later became the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.