Bob Graham Center for Public Service

A recording of this event can be found at: https://youtu.be/T1pfIhbBojQ

Please join us for the first in a three-part series this spring hosted by UF’s Office of Sustainability and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, in partnership with the Florida Climate Institute.

Attendees will hear from experts on the ways that the impacts of climate change, historical racial injustice and housing equity are connected. Attendees will learn ways they can take action in their studies, careers and everyday lives to affect larger change.

The panel of experts will be moderated by Sekita Grant, Climate Justice Consultant and Environmental Policy Strategist. Panelists include:

	Sekita Grant Sekita Grant is an environmental policy and social justice strategist. She is the Vice President of Programs with The Solutions Project overseeing their grantmaking, policy research, and impact strategy support for more than 100 frontline leaders innovating in models for a regenerative economy across the country and in Puerto Rico. She has been a consultant supporting change-makers in equitable climate policy and narratives and worked previously as a Climate Justice Fellow with the Emerson Collective and recently completed a fellowship with the Florida Sea Grant and University of Florida Law Conservation Clinic.
	Zelalem Adefris Zelalem Adefris is the vice president of policy and advocacy at Catalyst Miami, an organization focused on identifying and solving issues adversely affecting low-wealth communities throughout Miami-Dade County, Florida. Zelalem received a bachelor's degree in community health from Brown University and a master’s degree in global environmental health from Emory University. Zelalem joined Catalyst Miami in 2016, initially directing the organization's climate resilience programs and advocacy work. Currently, she oversees Catalyst Miami's Policy and Engagement department. Her previous work experiences include environmental justice organizing at the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island and conducting emergency preparedness research at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
	Cleary Larkin Cleary Larkin is an Assistant Scholar in the School of Architecture at the University of Florida. She holds a Bachelor’s of Architecture from the University of Arkansas and a Master’s of Historic Preservation from Columbia University. After a professional career as an architect and planner in Virginia and New York City, she earned a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the intersections of architecture, preservation and planning, both in historical and contemporary practice, and historic land-use decisions as a source of inequity in communities. As a scholar with the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience, Cleary leads the Florida Resilient Cities program, a new initiative that helps communities across Florida develop the capacity to be more prepared for, and more resilient to, greater risk.
	Pia Palomino Pia Palomino is the community organizer for Family Action Network Movement (FANM), a non-profit organization based in Little Haiti. Family Action Network Movement focuses on empowering low to moderate income families socially, financially, and politically in order to give them the tools to transform their community. Pia received a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sustainability, from Florida International University. She joined FANM during the pandemic, and her work has been focused on the issue of environmental justice, climate gentrification, sea level rise, and heat equity.
	Anne Ray Anne Ray is the manager of the Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse, a free, online source of data on affordable housing needs and supply. Since joining the Shimberg Center in 2001, she also has performed research on public housing, preservation of affordable rental housing, energy efficiency in the affordable housing stock, the housing needs of persons with disabilities, farmworker housing, homelessness among Florida children and youth, and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Ms. Ray is responsible for producing the Center’s triennial Statewide Rental Market Study and has co-authored numerous reports on statewide and local housing needs. Ms. Ray received a BA in History from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.