Incorporating Climate and Environmental Justice into Research and Resource Management: Skillsets & Competencies Integral to Justice Work

In partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Conservation Training Center, the National CASC presents a webinar series on the intersection between climate and environmental justice and environmental research.

Our speakers explore the ethics around engaging with the populations most vulnerable to the impacts of environmental and climate change, which are often low-income communities, communities of color, Indigenous and Tribal communities, and people facing disenfranchisement.

Devon Parfait is the chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw and a ’22 graduate of Williams College, where he majored in Geoscience. Throughout his undergraduate degree, he studied how coastal land loss is disproportionately affecting tribal communities in southeast Louisiana. Chief Parfait has had varied work experience ranging from developing media and GIS projects with the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to conducting fieldwork on shoreline change in the Gulf Islands National Seashore with the National Park Service. Parfait has also held several other leadership roles through the Native Youth Community Adaptation Leadership Congress and the Y Bold and Gold Advisory Council.

Legna M. Torres-García is a Research Oceanographer at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. Legna Torres García's work focuses on using multi-scale observational and numerical model data to understand circulation, waves, sediment transport, and coastal vulnerability. Her research includes simulations of hydrodynamics and coastal change in Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys. In addition, she is a principal investigator on a project on assessing the coastal vulnerability of communities in Puerto Rico through a focused stakeholder engagement approach. Her focus on both numerical model development and stakeholder engagement enables her to address community needs with the best available science.