Texas Sea Grant congratulates Heather Wade, Texas Sea Grant’s Senior Associate Director for Planning and Extension, for the prestigious honor of being selected as a Subject Matter Expert for the Resilience Dialogues. 

The Resilience Dialogues are a national collaboration effort that works to build climate-resilient communities through facilitated dialogues between scientists, practitioners, and community leaders.  Climate risks that communities face include changing patterns of extreme weather events, shifting growing seasons, more flooding near rivers and coastal regions, less water availability, and greater exposure to wildfires.

As a Subject Matter Expert, Wade will help define questions that drive resilience planning, characterize local risks, and explore the resources and strategies needed to develop climate risk assessments and plans.

Wade has rich experience with helping communities evaluate their resilience to natural hazards and help assess their land-use plans and ordinances. With Texas Sea Grant, she has provided technical assistance to urban planners and facilitated land-use and environmental planning workshops.  As the Coastal State-Federal Relations Coordinator for Oregon Coastal Management Program and Department of Land Conservation & Development, Wade managed Oregon’s coastal development and restoration projects database, performed federal consistency reviews, managed grant projects, and networked with local, state, and federal governments to reach solutions to coastal issues.

Her educational background also makes Wade a strong candidate as a Subject Matter Expert.  From Texas A&M University, she received a bachelor of science in Environmental Studies with minors in Geography and Earth Sciences and a Master of Urban Planning with a focus on Land Use and Environmental Planning with a certificate in Environmental Hazards Management.  Currently, Wade is working on her Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science also at Texas A&M University.

Texas Sea Grant Director, Dr. Pamela Plotkin stated “Heather is a leader in coastal planning and reducing risks from coastal hazards. As a scientist and practitioner, her important contributions to the Resilience Dialogues are timely as climate risks escalate and threaten Texas’ communities and their economies.”

For more information about Resilience Dialogues is available online at http://www.resiliencedialogues.org