Featuring climate resilience experts Joel Smith, MPP, climate change impacts and adaptation researcher (retired) and Joel Scheraga, Ph.D., EPA senior executive (retired) and Senior Advisor, Healthy Schools Network. Introduction by John Reeder, Executive Director, Healthy Schools Network.
Featured speakers:
- Joel Smith, MPP, climate change impacts and adaptation researcher (retired), and Deputy Director (former), EPA Climate Change Division
- Joel Scheraga, Ph.D., EPA senior executive (retired) and Senior Advisor, Healthy Schools Network
Session Focus:
- Climate stressors affecting school environments (e.g., heat, wildfire smoke, flooding)
- Regional variation in climate-related disasters and threats
- Vulnerability of schools to climate impacts
- Resilience strategies and resources
- Status of federal, state, and local policies and plans
Joel B. Smith with Stratus Consulting, has been analyzing climate change impacts and adaptation issues for over 20 years. He was a coordinating lead author for the synthesis chapter on climate change impacts for the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and was a lead author for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. Mr. Smith was recently nominated to be on the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change. He has provided technical advice, guidance, and training on assessing climate change impacts and adaptation to people around the world and for clients such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Country Studies Program, the World Bank, the United Nations, a number of states and municipalities in the U.S. (e.g., Florida, San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix), the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Electric Power Research Institute, the National Commission on Energy Policy, the Center for Climate Strategies, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Mr. Smith worked for the U.S. EPA from 1984 to 1992, where he was the deputy director of Climate Change Division. He is a coeditor of EPA’s Report to Congress: The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States, published in 1989; As Climate Changes: International Impacts and Implications, published by Cambridge University Press in 1995; and Adaptation to Climate Change: Assessments and Issues, published by Springer-Verlag in 1996, Climate Change, Adaptive Capacity, and Development, published in 2003 by Imperial College Press, and The Impact of Climate Change on Regional Systems: A Comprehensive Analysis of California published in 2006 by Edward Elgar. He joined Hagler Bailly in 1992 and Stratus Consulting in 1998. He has published more than thirty articles and chapters on climate change impacts and adaptation in peer-reviewed journals and books. Besides working on climate change issues at EPA, he also was a special assistant to the assistant administrator for the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation. Mr. Smith was a presidential management intern in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1982 to 1984. He has also worked in the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Mr. Smith received a BA (magna cum laude) from Williams College in 1979, and a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan in 1982.
Dr. Joel Scheraga is the Senior Advisor for School Resilience at the Healthy Schools Network. He joined the Network after serving as the Senior Advisor for Climate Adaptation in the Office of Policy at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He led the efforts at EPA to integrate climate resilience into the agency’s programs. A central focus of this work was supporting states, tribes, territories, local governments, and businesses as they prepare for and increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change, with a particular emphasis on advancing environmental justice. He led the development of EPA’s 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan, was a co-author of the Biden Administration’s 2023 National Climate Resilience Framework, and was on the team that produced President Obama’s 2013 Climate Action Plan.
In December 2015, Dr. Scheraga was honored with a Presidential Rank Award, the highest honor given to career members of the federal Senior Executive Service. He also was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Scheraga is strengthening the Healthy Schools Network’s mission to ensure that all students learn in safe, healthy, and resilient environments. His expertise is helping guide the Network’s growing focus on climate resilience in school infrastructure and environmental health policy.