2025 Lecture

From the Ground Up: Communities Leading the Next Chapter of Climate Resilience

Featuring Jainey Bavishi, former Deputy Administrator of NOAA and former Director of New York City’s Office of Climate Resiliency

December 3, 6 p.m. ET
Corless Auditorium, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay Campus

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About Jainey Bavishi

Jainey Bavishi has spent her career reimagining how cities and communities prepare for climate change. As former Deputy Administrator of NOAA and former Director of New York City’s Office of Climate Resiliency, she has led efforts to center equity, science and community leadership in climate adaptation. Her work connects national policy to neighborhood-scale action, helping shape a more just and durable approach to resilience. Bavishi holds a master’s in city planning from MIT and a bachelor’s in public policy and cultural anthropology from Duke University.

About Elin Torell

Elin Torell is the Director of the URI Coastal Institute. She is also the PI and project director of Rhode Island’s NSF EPSCoR E-CORE RII project “Rhode Island Network for Excellence in Science and Technology.” In these capacities she supports the growth of multi-and interdisciplinary research, discourse, and policy engagement at URI. She encourages cross-college collaboration and nurtures partnerships between URI, the state of Rhode Island, federal agencies, and community partners. With a Ph.D. in environmental studies and a M.S. in human and economic geography, Torell is an adjunct professor and graduate faculty in the URI Department of Marine Affairs.

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About the series

The Charles and Marie Fish Lecture is an annual public lecture endowed by the family of Drs. 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 URI Graduate School of Oceanography.

 

Past Lectures
2024	Dr. Susan Solomon, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Science, MIT	“Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again”
2023	Charlie Enright, skipper of The Ocean Race-winning 11th Hour Racing Team	“Six Months Across the Ocean“
2022	Dr. Jennifer Francis, Woodwell Climate Research Center	“Arctic Meltdown: Why It Matters to All of Us”
2021	Dr. Robert Ballard, Professor of Oceanography	“Adventures In Deep Sea Exploration: Living The Dream“
2020	Ian Urbina, investigative reporter	“The Outlaw Ocean“
2019	Dr. George V. Lauder, Harvard University	“Fish Robotics: How Fish Locomotion Will Inspire the Next Generation of Underwater Vehicles”
2017	Dr. Beth Orcutt, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences	“Buried Alive: Life Beneath the Seafloor”
2016	Dr. Christopher Landsea, Science and Operations Officer, National Hurricane Center	“Inside the Eye: Improving Hurricane Forecasts“
2015	Dr. Barbara A.Block, Stanford University	“Saving Our Blue Serengeti”
2014	Paul Greenberg, author	“American Catch: The Fight for our Local Seafood”
2013	Dr. Bess B. Ward, Princeton University	“Solving a Nitrogen Cycle Puzzle:The Pathways of Fixed Nitrogen on Oxygen Depleted Zones of the Ocean”
2012	Dr. Robert Hazen, Carnegie Institution of Washington	“Mineral Evolution: The Co-evolution of Rocks and Life”
2009	Dr. Enric Sala, National Geographic Society	“The Search for the Last Virgin Coral Reefs”
2008	Dr. Margaret Leinen, Climos, Inc.	“Climate Change Today and Tomorrow: Where Do We Go from Here?”
2006	Dr. Larry Mayer, University of New Hampshire	“Mapping the Unseen Ocean:New Approaches to Mapping and Visualizing the Seafloor”
2005	Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology	“Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes”
2004	Dr. Rod Salm, The Nature Conservancy	“The Heat Is On: Conserving Coral Reefs to Survive in a Changing Climate”
2003	Dr. Michael Vecchione, NOAA Fisheries/Smithsonian Institution	“Weird Deep Sea Squids and the Nature of Natural History”
2002	Dr. Robert Ballard, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography	“Ocean Exploration in the 21st Century”
2001	Cindy Lee Van Dover, College of Willam and Mary	“Where the Wild Things Are: Explorations at Deep-Sea Hot Springs”
2000	Blaine Harden, The New York Times	“Using the Columbia River to Explain the American West”
1999	Sandy Tolan, Homelands Productions	“From Gloucester to Gaza: Social Tensions Over Scarce Resources”
1998	Dr. Carl Safina, National Audubon Society, Living Oceans program	“Status and Trends in World’s Fisheries”
1997	Dr. John Morrissey, Department of Biology, Hofstra University	“Sharks are People, Too”
1996	Dr. Orrin Pilkey, Geology Department, Duke University	“Rising Seas, Shifting Shores: The Future of America’s Beaches”
1995	Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan, NOAA Chief Scientist and former Astronaut	“21st Century Challenges for the Ocean Science Community”
1994	Richard Wheeler, Educator, naturalist and kayaker	“Survival of Northwest Atlantic Fisheries: Lessons from the Great Auk”
1993	Dr. Bruce Robison, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute	“Deep Sea Exploration, 19th Century Science with 21st Century Tools”
1992	Dr. Sylvia Earle, NOAA Advisor and Deep Ocean Engineering, Inc.	“Ocean Exploration and the Environmental Aftermath of the Gulf War”
1991	Charles Alexander, Senior Editor, Time Magazine	“What Role for the Press in Global Environmental Change?”
1990	Sir Crispin Tickell, British representative to the United Nations and the Security Council	“The Human Implications of Global Climate Change”