EAPS

A TWO-PART PANEL on climate-induced displacement moderated by Jason Jackson, MIT Professor in Political Economy and Urban Planning, with insights from climate science, economic development research, and community driven planning and advocacy efforts. Discussion will focus on recent hurricanes impacting Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and other US and independent territories in the Caribbean.

Part I: Examining the political, economic and historical contexts that shape how recent disasters have impacted historically marginalized communities.

Part II: Exploring how recovery and rebuilding efforts can both affirm human rights and decrease the likelihood of future displacement.
Panelists
Kerry Emanuel, MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

The Cecil and Ida Green professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been on the faculty since 1981, after spending three years on the faculty of UCLA. Professor Emanuel's research interests focus on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and three books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, published by Oxford University Press and aimed at a general audience, and What We Know about Climate Change, published by the MIT Press. He is a co-director of MIT’s Lorenz Center, a climate think tank devoted to basic, curiositydriven climate research.
Genea Foster, Climate Justice Alliance + UPROSE

Genea Foster is a Brooklyn native, hailing from East New York. At UPROSE, Genea coordinates the Climate Justice Center and the Protect Our Working Waterfront Alliance. Genea is an urban planner with expertise in environmental planning, community development, and community engagement. She has extensive experience working on land use and environmental planning within community-based, academic, and governmental organizations. She has worked on projects addressing climate resiliency, sustainable energy, brownfield redevelopment, public health, and environmental gentrification. Genea holds a Bachelor's in Environmental Studies and Biology from Wellesley College and a Master's in City Planning from MIT.
Deepak Lamba-Nieves, Center for the New Economy

The Research Director & Churchill G. Carey, Jr. Chair in Economic Development Research at the Center for a New Economy. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University’ s Watson Institute for International Studies. He completed his Ph.D. in Urban Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) while affiliated to the department’s International Development Group (IDG). His current research interests focus on: the migration-development nexus, transnational migrant organizations, hometown associations (HTAs) and state-society dynamics. Before joining MIT, he spent close to seven years as Research Director in CNE. While at the Center, he also taught Geography and Planning courses at the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras Campus, and also at the Polytechnic University’s School of Architecture. He completed a Masters in City Planning (MCP) at UC Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) prior to joining CNE. His Masters work looked at high-technology policy in Puerto Rico and the contemporary economic development challenges in the island. He spent his college days at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras Campus, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BA in Economics and Geography.
Jovanna Garcia-Soto, Grassroots International

Jovanna Garcia Soto is the Solidarity Program Officer for Latin America. Prior to joining Grassroots’ Program team, Jovanna spent five years at the Chelsea Collaborative, where she directed their environmental justice program. Jovanna is trilingual in Spanish (her mother tongue), Portuguese, and English. She is originally from Puerto Rico and was involved there with the student movement for ending the US military occupation of Vieques. She has also spent some time working in Brazil with the riverine communities in the Amazonian region.
Panel Moderator
Jason Jackson, Assistant Professor of Political Economy and Urban Planning

Jason Jackson is an Assistant Professor in Political Economy and Urban Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Jason’s research focuses on the relationship between states and markets. It seeks to understand the historical origins and evolution of the institutional arrangements through which states and markets are constituted from the late 19th century to the present. Jason’s work is particularly focused on the role of economic ideas and moral beliefs in shaping market institutions. It assesses the implications of political struggles between business, government and societal actors for market structure and resulting competitive and distributional outcomes. Empirically his work focuses on contexts ranging from the politics of monopoly and foreign investment in India from the late colonial period to the present, to the ‘sharing economy’ and urban transportation markets in contemporary cities in Asia, Europe and the United States. Jason completed his Ph.D. in Political Economy at MIT. He also holds an AB in Economics from Princeton University, an MSc in Development Economics from the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. He has won fellowships from the Social Sciences Research Council and the UK-based Overseas Development Institute, and has worked with a variety of private, non-governmental and multilateral organizations in the Caribbean, South Africa and the United States.
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Presented by

DRAN, housed within the International Development Group of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, is a crosscutting network of researchers and individuals from international and grassroot organizations who share the goal of furthering our understanding of the consequences of displacement within the framework of human rights. We also support the creation of innovative tools and frameworks which can be used to assess displacement and measure the impact of related policies. The ultimate goal is to prevent displacement that violates the economic, civil, cultural, social and political rights of affected populations on a global scale.