Appendix B

Committee and Speaker Biographies

Chief Romes Antoine (Speaker) is Chief of the Avoyel-Taensa Tribe of Louisiana and Indigenous knowledge-holder and serves as the FPCC vice president. He is a board member on the Council of Aging and Treasurer for the Deacon at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church. Chief Antoine previously worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as the head supervisor over workers and heavy equipment operator. He is developing partnerships with local entities to mitigate the encroachment of water and create protection for his tribal members and to save sacred, traditional plants.

Genie Ardoin (Speaker) was a resident of Chauvin, LA, but relocated north to Houma, LA. She is the Executive Director of the Bayou Regional Arts Council and has done hurricane relief work through the Helio Foundation.

Kayode O. Atoba (Committee Member) is an associate research scientist at the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas at Texas A&M University. His research draws on the broader theory of urban planning and hazard resiliency to propose best mitigation and adaptation strategies using quantitative and geospatial methodologies to identify the interactions between the built environment and natural hazards. Atoba’s recent work addresses issues related to property acquisition and buyouts as non-structural mitigation strategies to reduce flood hazard impacts. He is a mentor and an alumnus of the William Averette Anderson Fund, focused on increasing the number of underrepresented persons in the field of disaster research and planning. Atoba has a Ph.D. in urban and regional science from Texas

A&M University, College Station, and an M.S. in geographic information systems from Sam Houston State University.

Janice Barnes (Committee Co-Chair) is the founding and managing partner of Climate Adaptation Partners, a NYC-based woman-owned business that focuses on planning, advocacy, and partnership-building for climate adaptation. She is an advisor to the Urban Land Institute Resilience team, the American Institute of Architects National Resilience Advisory Group, the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO TC59 on Buildings and Civil Engineering Works, and the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience. Barnes holds a Ph.D. in architecture/organizational behavior and an M.S. in architecture from the University of Michigan, as well as a M.A. from Tulane University.

Gary S. Belkin (Committee Member) is a visiting scientist at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the founder and president of the Billion Minds Institute, which brings science and policy to bear on tackling the “social climate” crisis of the climate crisis. He works with municipalities—in the US and globally—to innovate methods for population community mental health and resilience in ways that advance other social and human capital aims and outcomes and that shift knowledge, skills, and implementation tools to community members. Belkin holds a Ph.D. in the history of medicine from Harvard University, and an M.D. from Brown University Alpert School of Medicine and completed a residency in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Bettie Billiot (Speaker) is a single mother of three sons. She is from Dulac, LA, currently residing in Houma, LA, both located within lower Terrebonne Parish. She is a member of the United Houma Nation and an advocate for her people against climate and economic injustices. She tries to be as active as she can be in meetings and discussions around the future of her people and their homelands. Billiot hosts the Kid’s Culture Camp, which focuses on tribal youth from different areas coming together to learn cultural traditions, as well as first-hand exposure to the environmental impacts on the land around them. All lessons are taught from Elders and leaders from the communities they live in. Her passion is her family, community, tribe, the youth and being a voice for those now who were never asked the question, “how will this affect you?”

Beth Butler (Speaker) is a lifelong community organizer of low to moderate-income families. She has worked with the community-centered non-profit organization, ACORN, in several southern cities and has been based in New Orleans since 1980. Butler also works with “A Community Voice--

Louisiana/ACORN.” She loves organizing working people for social and environmental justice, and loves family, friends, and life.

Debra M. Butler (Committee Member) is the Mellon Foundation curriculum development fellow at the Five College Consortium and has professional experience in financial markets and leadership development. Her primary research interests are climate displacement; migration and resettlement on the Gulf Coast; and how tribal as well as communities of color employ cultural resources and Indigenous knowledge to mitigate structural vulnerabilities as well as climate impacts. Her foci are communities in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Sancti Spiritus, Cuba. She is a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship fellow, a National Academies of Sciences Gulf Research Science Policy fellow, and a Harte Research Institute Furgason fellow. She also holds certification from the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals and the National Disaster Preparedness Center. She has an Ed.M. from Harvard, has an M.B.A. from Brandeis University International Business School, and Ph.D. in environmental studies from the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts.

Jay Clune (Speaker) became president of Nicholls State University on January 1, 2018. Before he was named President, Clune served in multiple administrative posts at the University of West Florida. He has more than two decades of experience in higher education as a faculty member and administrator. A Houma native, he has degrees from Nicholls State University and Louisiana State University.

Craig Colten (Committee Member) is professor emeritus at Louisiana State University. His principal training is in historical geography, with foci on human adaptation to environmental conditions and settlement geography. His recent research has focused on hazards and community resilience in the Gulf Coast, adaptation to environmental change, and environmental migration as an adaptive strategy. Colten is senior advisor at Water Institute of the Gulf, a fellow of the American Association of Geographers, and a recipient of the association’s 2022 Gilbert White Distinguished Public Service Honor. Colten served as the chair of the Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement Project Academic Advisory Committee. His most recent book is State of Disaster: A Historical Geography of Louisiana’s Land Loss Crisis. Colten has a Ph.D. in geography from Syracuse University.

Nicole Cooper (Speaker) currently serves as the legislative assistant for Louisiana State Representative Timothy P. Kerner. She is also the Director of Administration for the Lafitte Area Independent Levee District. Cooper

first began working for the Town of Jean Lafitte in 2008 following Hurricane Ike, to help the town with the recovery process, and has been involved in the design and construction of several levee and drainage projects. As legislative assistant, she has worked hand in hand with Representative Kerner in his fight to provide adequate flood protection to his constituents. Born and raised in Lafitte, LA, Cooper understands the fight her hometown is facing, and she sees it as a cause worth fighting for.

Kelli Cunningham (Speaker) is the director of the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government Housing and Human Services Department. She has been instrumental in the implementation of various federally funded economic development, affordable housing, and public service projects in Terrebonne Parish that benefit underresourced communities. Cunningham is the designated Labor Enforcement and Environmental officer for HUD-funded activities within Terrebonne Parish. She is also the designated Emergency Support Function 6 Manager of the Terrebonne Parish Unified Command. This support function provides mass care, mass feeding, housing, and other related human services to disaster victims in the event of natural or technological disaster.

Windell Curole (Speaker) serves as General Manager/Executive Secretary for the South Lafourche Levee District. Curole’s efforts in overseeing design, construction, improvements, and maintenance of the South Lafourche levee system for many decades has saved thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars in flood damage and remediation. The success of the levee system, together with his life-long advocacy for coastal protection and community safety, is widely known to state and national organizations. Curole has been recognized twice by the National Hurricane Conference for his leadership in this arena. He was also the visionary of the 100-year memorial of the Great Cheniere Hurricane of 1893, which manifested as a regional festival that attracted nearly 10,000 visitors from around the world to South Lafourche communities; following the grassroots cultural organization that emerged—the Cheniere Hurricane Centennial—he has served as its only president for the past 28 years.

Katherine J. Curtis (Committee Member) is professor of Community and Environmental Sociology and associate director of the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her work is centered in demography and extends to spatial, environmental, rural, and applied demography, and focuses on two central themes: population-environment interactions, most centrally the relationship between demographic, economic, and environmental forces; and spatial and temporal dimensions of social and economic inequality, most centrally his-

torical and local forces perpetuating racial disparities. In her work, Curtis adopts place-based theoretical frameworks and employs advanced spatial and spatiotemporal statistical approaches to analyze questions about inequality, which has profound and far-reaching impacts on population wellbeing. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Washington.

Elder Theresa Dardar (Speaker) is an active advocate for the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems and coastal Louisiana’s tribal communities. A Pointeau-Chien Indian tribal member, Elder Dardar is a powerful voice for her community, serving as a representative and spokesperson from local to international forums, like the U.N. Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Conference. Dardar is a FPCC founding member and leader. She is the Diocesan American Indian liaison at the Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux and President of St. Charles the Roch, Kateri Circle, a branch of the Tekakwitha Conference. She was a board member of South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center and Go Fish, a multi-parish alliance of fisher families. She travels between political, professional, academic, and organizational realms to voice justice concerns for her tribe and greater native community.

Jessica Domangue (Speaker) Terrebonne Parish councilwoman, Houma District 5.

John Doucet (Speaker) was born and raised in Golden Meadow along Bayou Lafourche. He is dean of the College of Sciences and Technology, director of Coastal Initiatives, Alcee Fortier professor of Biological Sciences, and McIlhenny professor of Human and Environmental Genetics at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA. Outside of science, Doucet is an award-winning author of Cajun culture plays, books of poetry, and a monthly column on coastal culture and science for Point of Vue magazine (Houma). His recent article appearing in Louisiana Folklore Miscellany, Vol. 29 (2019), is a personal history of his hometown, Golden Meadow.

Harriet Festing (Committee Member) is co-founder and executive director of the Anthropocene Alliance (A2), a Florida-based nonprofit that combats climate change and environmental abuse by building grassroots coalitions in the communities most affected by flooding, toxic waste, wildfires, drought, and heat. Festing previously worked for the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago where she undertook ground-breaking research on urban flooding in the United States. Her work with A2 advances community transformation by building grassroots coalitions in the communities most badly affected by climate change, including current work in Port Arthur, TX, helping community leaders to survey their residents to see what climate

migration might look like for this community. She has an M.Phil. in business economics from the University of London.

Patrick W. Forbes (Speaker) is the executive director of the Louisiana Office of Community Development. He oversees the state’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery programs funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Forbes’ oversight includes housing, economic development, infrastructure and planning programs for recovery from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, Isaac, Laura, Delta and the 2016 floods, as well as resilience planning activities. Previously, Forbes managed the Louisiana Recovery Authority’s infrastructure section and before Hurricane Katrina, he served as an engineer in the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities. Prior to his state service, Forbes worked as a consulting environmental engineer, owned and operated his own company, and worked at a paper mill. He earned a B.S.ME. and a M.B.A. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Jonathan Foret (Speaker) a native of Chauvin, LA, grew up in a culture-rich environment from working on shrimp boats as a young boy to speaking Louisiana French with his grandmother. He received a B.A. in English from Nicholls State University and later studied at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. He taught English at Grand Caillou Middle in Houma, LA and then in Brooklyn, NY, before he joined the United States Peace Corps. He is a founding member of the Bayou Regional Arts Council serving Louisiana State Region 3 and is board President of the Helio Foundation, which recently sponsored the creation of the Houma Heights Cultural District in Terrebonne Parish. Foret is proud to be working with the board of directors for the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center as Executive Director to move the organization’s vision forward. He has developed many innovative programs and cultural events including the Rougarou Fest, a family-friendly festival with a spooky flair that celebrates the rich folklore that exists along the bayous of Southeast Louisiana. The Rougarou Fest was ranked one of the Top 10 Costume Parties in the United States by USA Today, the 2015 New Event of the Year by the Louisiana Association of Fairs and Festivals, and the 2020 Festival of the Year by the Louisiana Travel Association. Upon completion of this work, he returned to the United States to receive his M.P.A. from the University of New Orleans.

Lynn Goldman (Committee Member) is a pediatrician and epidemiologist and is both the Michael and Lori Milken Dean and professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University. She was previously professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins

University. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a member of the NIH National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council, and a member of the National Academies Environmental Health Matters Initiative. Goldman is chair of the board for the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and a member of the CDC Advisory Committee to the Director. Goldman holds a M.D. from University of California, San Francisco, a M.PH. from Johns Hopkins University, as well as a B.S. and M.S. from University of California, Berkeley.

Mark Goodson (Speaker) has a career that spans over 17 years, and has been focused on resilience, urban planning and redevelopment, public finance, and program management. As the Principal and Resilience Practice lead at CSRS, a Louisiana-based design, planning, and program management firm, he leads a multi-disciplinary team that provides advisory services and delivers solutions to governmental and commercial clients who wish to adapt to thrive amidst ever-changing economic, natural, and sociodemographic environments. As such, Goodson and the CSRS resilience team help clients identify risks and vulnerabilities, develop strategic interventions, and design and implement resilience programs, as well as integrate resilience and sustainability into existing capital programs. He has served as Project or Program Manager for a number of initiatives, ranging from redevelopment and development finance projects during his time in local government, to major planning and resilience projects over the past five years including: LA SAFE, Isle de Jean Charles Community Resettlement Project, University Avenue Corridor Study, University Lakes Restoration Project, and Louisiana Watershed Initiative. Goodson draws from his work experience in the private, governmental and nonprofit sectors, as well as community service and education in landscape architecture and public administration from Louisiana State University to provide optimal service to clients, as well as create fun and productive work environments for his teams.

Alessandra Jerolleman (Speaker) is a community resilience specialist and applied researcher at the Lowlander Center and co-founder of Hazard Resilience, a U.S.-based consultancy providing leadership and expertise in disaster recovery, risk reduction, and hazard policy. She is an associate professor of Emergency Management at Jacksonville State University where she conducts applied research into hazard policy and practice with a focus on increasing justice and equity in disaster recovery. Jerolleman is an expert in climate adaptation, hazard mitigation, and resilience with a long history of working in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including as lead grant writer and emergency planner for the FPCC and serving in a lead role with the Lowlander Center on coastal community resettlement.

Dedra Knowles (Speaker) is a 44-year-old recovering addict. She has a passion for showing the world that there are people who love and care for others still left in the world; as well as that no matter how hard things may get, through God all things are possible. Prior to Knowles’ addiction she held managerial positions and during her addiction she worked in construction. She has a wide variety of skills, but most important to her now is her faith in God.

Gary LaFleur, Jr. (Speaker) was born and raised in Eunice, LA among the music of prairie Cajuns and rice fields at the top of the Cajun Triangle. He has a B.S. at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. He studied reproduction and fertilization in aquatic organisms throughout his post graduate years including an M.S. degree at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a Ph.D. at the University of Florida College of Medicine, and post-doctoral employment at Brown University. While studying the reproduction of aquatic organisms, LaFleur became connected to the ecology of the habitats where he collected his model organisms, from the swamps, marshes, and barrier islands that line coastal shorelines. Eventually he also became interested in the livelihood of the human communities that are established in these same coastal habitats. He joined Nicholls faculty in 1998 and for 24 years has been escorting students into the majestic habitats of the LA coastal wetlands. LaFleur teaches comparative physiology, developmental biology, and pirogue biology. Besides conducting coastal research, he also serves as the director of the Center for Bayou Studies, the coordinator of the Chauvin Sculpture Garden, and president of the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary Foundation.

Chief Albert Naquin (Speaker) is traditional Chief of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation. He represents his Tribe from local to international levels, including the UN, as a State-level Tribal representative for education, and laid the groundwork for the Albuquerque 2000 and Marksville 2010 Census. He is retired from the Mineral Management Service (MMS) and was a former oil field safety inspector in the Gulf of Mexico for MMS and Bureau of Land Management in Colorado and New Mexico. Chief Naquin is a Vietnam veteran and ambassador for the Native Americans of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. A gourd dancer, keeper and drummer of the Miracle Drum, he works with numerous local and national advocacy groups for policy change that will bring progress for his Tribe and all Indigenous people.

Cyndi Nguyen (Speaker), Executive Director, Vietnamese Initiatives in Economic Training.

Samuel Oliver (Speaker) is a Louisiana-based non-profit executive with experience leading museums, performing arts centers, and cultural development agencies. Oliver has served as the executive director of the Acadiana Center for the Arts (AcA) where he heads the regional arts council’s operations, fundraising, and programming. Prior to joining the AcA, Oliver served as the assistant director of the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and as an arts officer for the City of Edinburgh Council, UK Office of Cultural Development. In these roles, Oliver developed a professional practice as a researcher, advocate for data-driven decision making and cultural policy, and has managed large-scale grants and capital projects. He is a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar; a member of the New Orleans Young Cultural Innovators Hub, an alumnus of the Young Leadership Council’s Leadership Development Series, an alumnus of Emerging Philanthropists of New Orleans, and a graduate of Leadership Lafayette Class XXXII. Oliver is the chairman of the Louisiana Partnership for the Arts and a member of Leadership Louisiana. He holds a B.A. from Louisiana State University, an M.A. in arts and cultural management from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and a certificate in cultural diplomacy from the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin.

Chief Devon Parfait (Speaker) is the Chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw. 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. He has also held several other leadership roles through the Native Youth Community Adaptation Leadership Congress and the Y Bold and Gold Advisory Council. Chief Parfait is currently working as a coastal resilience analyst for EDF and the MRD coalition, where he is working to support the science committee and to help advance justice for coastal communities. He is also a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in geoscience.

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar (Speaker) is the traditional tribal Chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw and a traditional dressmaker. She is an FPCC founding member and currently serves as the Secretary. Chief Parfait-Dardar was elected the first chairwoman of the Louisiana Office of Indian Affairs Native American Commission and also serves as the Indigenous representative of the Louisiana Governor’s Climate Initiatives Task Force, bringing Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the perspective of living for the next generations into decision making.

She is an active advocate for cultural preservation, coastal restoration and preservation, community resiliency, education, environmental and human rights. She was also featured in the docuseries, National Geographic Presents: IMPACT with Gal Gadot, Episode 5 “Killer Red Fox,” for her role as an environmental advocate and tribal Chief.

Thaddeus “Mike” Pellegrin (Speaker) is a retired past-resident of the community of Chauvin, LA who relocated to north Thibodaux, LA. His grandson bought their family home a few months before Ida hit and is currently repairing that house.

Elder Rosina Philippe (Speaker), a lifetime resident of coastal Louisiana, is an Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribal Elder and FPCC president. Her work focuses on partnering/forging with leaders from other communities and organizations to address climate change, environmental justice, gentrification, and coastal restoration/preservation. As a guest lecturer, she speaks on recognizing accountability and identifying contributing factors to these issues. Elder Philippe is a firm believer that people facing similar problems, through informed education and information sharing, can affect positive long-term changes and, through collaboration, take charge of their own destinies, to build a more resilient, humane, and sustainable life.

Christopher M. Pulaski (Speaker) is originally from Houma, LA and after some time away, he returned to his hometown where he began working for the National Wildlife Federation advocating for coastal restoration and non-structural flood protection. Pulaski was senior planner for Terrebonne Parish until he was appointed to planning director. He lives in Downtown Houma with his family. He graduated with a B.LA from Louisiana State University.

E. Barrett Ristroph (Committee Member) is owner of Ristroph Law, Planning, and Research, which provides services to tribes, communities, and agencies related to natural resources, hazard mitigation, government, and climate change adaptation as well as relocation. She is a lawyer, planner, mediator, evaluator, and researcher based in south Louisiana and Alaska. Her work has included assisting Newtok Village, Alaska, with relocating to Mertarvik, AK; establishing a climate change program for an Alaskan inter-tribal organization; assisting tribes with hazard mitigation and adaption planning; working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on environmental review for Louisiana coastal restoration projects; and working on reports for international agreements related to environmental and human rights issues. She has a Ph.D in adaptation planning and a J.D.

Cynthia (Cindy) P. Robertson (Speaker) started as the executive director of a nonprofit focusing on sustainable agriculture and lifestyle, where she was leading a teaching and research staff as well as all the support staff for the teaching/research gardens, restaurant and gift store. She then started a nonprofit in TX, working with the elderly and adults with mental and emotional disabilities. Moving to Sulphur, LA to be with her mother as she aged, Robertson saw a great need in the low-income neighborhood known as Portie (pronounced Po-chay) Town and started micah 6:8 mission to feed the homeless, educate, and organize the community around social justice issues. micah 6:8 mission presently works with neighbors suffering from addiction and mental health issues and educating the community on the public health and disaster issues caused by the huge environmental impact the fossil fuel industry has on southwest Louisiana. She has a M.S.W. from the University of Houston.

Catherine L. Ross (Committee Member) is regents’ professor and Harry West professor of city and regional planning and civil and environmental engineering and director of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her extensive regional resilience and sustainability research focuses on water resources, energy, transportation, economic development, and Mobility-as-a-Service. Her work includes a multidisciplinary focus on resilience, analytics, transportation impact assessment, and performance management. She currently serves as chairman of the board of directors of the Auto Club Group with the American Automobile Association. She recently joined the board of the Health Effects Institute, which focuses on the health effects of air pollution, including those caused by unconventional oil and gas development. She holds a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from Cornell University.

Tracie T. Sempier (Committee Co-Chair) is the coastal resilience engagement specialist for the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium. She works with local communities, state and federal agencies, non-profit organizations, businesses, coastal managers, residents, and K-12 audiences to decrease the negative effects of disasters (natural, technological, and biological) on families, communities, and the environment. She is also the VORTEX-SE engagement coordinator, for which she is creating a model for regional extension programming focused on severe weather, synthesizing research findings to inform application at the local level, and working to create safe sheltering options for vulnerable populations. She is the lead for the Gulf of Mexico Climate and Resilience Community of Practice. She earned a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from Mississippi State University, an M.S. in science and mathematics education at Oregon State University, and a B.S. in marine science and biology from the University of Alabama.

Jessica Simms (Speaker) is an associate program officer in the Health and Resilience Unit in the Gulf Research Program with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She works on both the Enhancing Community Resilience (EnCoRe) Initiative and a consensus study. For her dissertation she interviewed residents from coastal Louisiana parishes who have already or are currently facing possible relocation decisions or displacement. The research focused on understanding the links among the influence and mobility of three factors: social relations (i.e., faith-based networks, civic organizations, family, cultural and heritage identities, etc.), inherent resilient practices, and place, including sense of and attachment to it. Simms has a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in politics, an M.A. in geography from San Diego State University, and a Ph.D. in geography from Louisiana State University.

Gavin P. Smith (Committee Member) is a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on hazard mitigation, disaster recovery, and climate change adaptation and the integration of research and practice through deep community engagement. His current research includes assessing the state of disaster resilient design education at U.S. universities, the analysis of a national survey assessing the role of states in building the capacity of local governments to implement hazard mitigation grants and a comparative assessment of hazard-prone housing acquisition programs in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. He has developed a graduate certificate program in disaster resilient policy, engineering, and design and is helping to coordinate a university-wide effort focused on disaster resilience spanning research, teaching, and engagement-related activities. He holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from Texas A&M University.

Natalie Snider (Committee Member) is the associate vice president for climate resilient coasts and watersheds for the Environmental Defense Fund. She works to ensure sound science and just decisionmaking is being utilized to plan, implement, and adaptively manage projects and policies, with a focus on system dynamics to meet the challenges of climate change to coastal and riverine ecosystems and communities. She previously worked at Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, leading efforts on the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan and as the Science Director at the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. She is a Ph.D. candidate in marine and estuarine environmental sciences at the University of Maryland, holds an M.S. in oceanography and coastal sciences, and a B.S. in wildlife and fisheries management, both from Louisiana State University.

Bonnie Theriot (Speaker) currently lives in Chauvin but is interested in relocating from the hurricane prone area. She moved to Tennessee for a time, but she moved back because she missed her network of friends and family. Theriot bought a house a few months before Ida and it is still in disrepair.

Courtney S. Thomas Tobin (Committee Member) is an assistant professor in community health sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health and a faculty associate of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. As a medical sociologist, she integrates traditional sociological theories with perspectives from public health, social psychology, medicine, and the biological sciences to examine the social, psychological, and biological pathways that contribute to the health and longevity of Black Americans. Her research program makes conceptual and empirical contributions to three interrelated areas of inquiry: (1) psychosocial pathways to embodiment, including the interconnections between mental and physical health; (2) health risks and resources across the life course; and (3) racialized stress and coping processes among Black Americans. She was a U.C. President’s postdoctoral fellow in public health and psychology prior to joining the faculty at University of California, Los Angeles. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Vanderbilt University and a B.S. in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana.

Mark J. VanLandingham (Speaker) is the Thomas C. Keller Professor at Tulane University. He currently teaches Population Mobility and Health and Health Problems of Developing Societies (with Katherine Andrinopoulos). VanLandingham directs Tulane’s Center for Studies of Displaced Populations and leads research teams focusing on rural-to-urban migration within Southeast Asia; long-term post-disaster recovery; and acculturation, health, and well-being among Vietnamese immigrants living in New Orleans. His recent book, Weathering Katrina, focuses on these two latter topics.

Shana Walton (Speaker) is an anthropologist who teaches at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA. She is the co-editor of Languages in Louisiana: Community and Culture, co-founder of the Bayou Culture Collaborative, as well as co-primary investigator and project manager of “Digital Curation;” a project funded by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to make a wide range of research about the Gulf Coast more easily accessible to both researchers and the public. Her book, co-authored with Helen Regis, Bayou Harvest: Subsistence on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast is forthcoming in 2023.

Cherry Wilmore (Speaker) currently works as a case manager at the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office. She is tasked with creating and maintain-

ing individualized service plans to reduce recidivism and return individuals back to their communities as productive citizens. While born in Lake Charles, LA, Wilmore’s entry into the foster care system carried her to Oberlin, LA and later Houma, LA, where she has resided most of her life. Driven by a strong commitment to learning and empowering others, she is the co-founder of Everybody’s Favorite Twins, a social media platform which educates, empowers, and engages her culture and community. Wilmore also co-founded Laptops of Love, a campaign to gift graduating foster youths with laptops. She also co-hosts a Women’s Brunch to provide a space where women build and uplift one another. She has served as a panelist for Together We Can “Aging Out of Foster Care,” and Fletcher’s “Black Girls That Rock” Black History Program. Wilmore is a member of Foster Care Alumni of America and Fostering Change Network Alumni. In addition, she has been a keynote speaker for foster care, political, secondary and post-secondary education presentations. She is an active member of her church and rotary. She received her B.A. in government from Nicholls State University, later enrolling in the M.Ed program at the same university.

Sherry Wilmore (Speaker) currently serves as the community coordinator at Goodwill Industries of New Orleans, a non-profit focused on services and programs for justice-involved individuals in Southeast Louisiana. In her role, she identifies reentry needs, develops community partners, and collaborates with organizations to meet the needs of the individuals. Wilmore was born in Lake Charles, LA, and has resided in Houma, LA since she was a young child. Growing up in the foster care system helped to shape her strong belief in community service. Wilmore is the co-founder of Everybody’s Favorite Twins, a social media platform which educates, empowers, and engages her community and she has co-founded Laptops of Love, a campaign to gift graduating foster youths. Wilmore also co-hosts a Women’s Brunch to provide an outlet where women can empower one another. She has served as a panelist for Together We Can “Aging Out of Foster Care,” and is a member of Foster Care Alumni of America, and Fostering Change Network Alumni. When she graduated from undergraduate with her bachelor’s degree, she became one of the first foster children to successfully complete the Young Adult Program in the state of Louisiana. Wilmore then continued her education by enrolling in the M.Ed. program at the same university.