Will San Francisco sink before the next “big one”? Will N95 masks become cool? Climate change is reshaping our landscape and behaviors at a rapid pace. Join us as we explore how a city can focus its efforts to maintain the urban area in the face of rising sea levels, earthquakes, and regional fires, and what can we learn from the past about an unpredictable future.
Speakers
Deland Chan teaches in the Program on Urban Studies at Stanford University and is a doctoral candidate in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include climate vulnerabilities and the role of urban sustainability and climate adaptation plans on socio-spatial inequity and spatial injustices.
Sara Dean is currently an Assistant Professor in MFA Design at the California College of Art. She is also the Director of Research and Partnerships at Stamen Design in San Francisco, co-director of the design research practice anexact office and an Investigator for the crowd-sourced disaster response platform, PetaJakarta.org.
Melissa Higbee is a Principal Resilience Analyst in the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning. Melissa leads citywide resilience planning efforts, such as hazard mitigation, climate adaptation, and disaster recovery planning. Prior to joining the City and County of San Francisco, Melissa worked with cities as a consultant to create resilience strategies and climate adaptation plans.
Susan Schwartzenberg (moderator) is a senior artist at the Exploratorium, where she leads the development of the Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery. She has been a curator, photographer, designer, and artist, and served as director of media for the museum. Susan was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, the California College of Art, and Stanford University.