SEAoNY Resilience Committee Series #3: Adapting to Flooding and the Rising Tides in NYC

Elizabeth Hodges McQuade, Senior Policy Advisor, New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice

Elizabeth Hodges McQuade (Lizzie) is an experienced practitioner and collaborator in architectural design, urban, and climate resiliency planning. She's an architect and currently works as a Senior Policy Advisor at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice where she is developing policies and programs for successfully adapting the City’s built environment for a changed, future climate. She was priorly an associate partner at Guy Nordenson and Associates, a structural engineering and research practice committed to collaborative and innovative design solutions for cultural buildings. Lizzie is an active member of the climate change planning community in New York City and has taught in the architecture programs at Syracuse and Princeton Universities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University.

Roni Dietz, Global Innovation Director for Resilience, Arcadis

Ms. Deitz is the Global Innovation Director for Resilience at Arcadis, where she leads and manages innovative approaches to improve quality of life across water, climate, energy, environment, and sustainability. She is also a Senior Engineer concentrated in climate risk and community resilience with nearly a decade of experience delivering globally recognized projects, building motivated and inspired teams, and co-creating with clients and Arcadians to improve quality of life. Her experience has been shaped by managing and delivering large, multidisciplinary resiliency projects, most recently including the City of New York’s Climate Adaptation Plan for Lower Manhattan.

Shubhra Misra, Senior Research Scientist, The Water Institute of the Gulf

Shubhra Misra is a Senior Research Scientist and Climate Resilience Specialist at The Water Institute of the Gulf. He has more than 16 years of extensive and effective team-oriented leadership, coordination, and management experience in the planning, execution, management, and delivery of complex, large multi-disciplinary civil works (coastal and marine) projects. He recently served as the Hydrology-Hydraulics-Coastal lead in USACE Galveston’s largest coastal storm risk management project and as a Climate Preparedness and Resilience Specialist in the Department of Defense Climate Action Plan’s Climate Action Team. Shubhra has extensive experience in site-selection, design, constructability, construction, and operation of coastal and marine infrastructure, navigation, and flood risk management projects. Recently, his work has focused on large-scale compound flooding studies leveraging state-of-the-art statistical, probabilistic and numerical models to characterize flood risk under present and future conditions. Shubhra has a P.E in water resources engineering and is an ACOPNE Diplomate in coastal and port engineering. He started his professional career in New York, NY and currently resides in Houston, TX.

Josh Murphy, Senior Coastal Information Specialist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Josh Murphy is a Senior Coastal Information Specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management in Silver Spring, MD. As a subject matter expert in geographic information systems (GIS) tools and methods, Josh brings 20 years of experience in the areas of data and tool development, spatial analysis, and technical assistance to coastal communities. His current work focuses on helping coastal communities use and apply geospatial information to adapt to a changing climate, and enhance their community resilience. As an educator, Josh has extensive experience in the areas of curriculum development and instruction. He holds an adjunct faculty position within the Urban and Regional Planning Program at Georgetown University where he teaches classes focused on the integration of GIS data and tools with urban planning concepts.

CJ Bodnar, Technical Services Program Manager, Virginia Beach Public Works Stormwater Engineering Center

C.J. is the Technical Services Program Manager for the Virginia Beach Public Works Stormwater Engineering Center. As the Program Manager, he oversees the City’s Stormwater Master Planning and Sea Level Wise efforts.

C.J. has been with the City of Virginia Beach since May 2015 and is a registered professional engineer. He is a proud graduate of the Virginia Military Institute with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.