Rebecca focuses on governance issues related to climate adaptation and resilience, including the transparency, equity and inclusivity of adaptation planning and implementation processes. Her work encompasses mainstreaming adaptation across sectors and at multiple scales from national to local, climate finance, as well as transformative adaptation, i.e. shifting entire systems to better address the climate challenge.

Rebecca has worked on climate change issues for much of her career, in academic, non-profit and federal government roles. She has conducted research on why agricultural adaptation will need to be more transformative and how to make it so; the climate change implications of water policies on demand and supply; how to make climate information more useful for diverse user groups; and intersections of land use planning and climate change.

Prior to joining WRI, she was a Foreign Service Environment Officer with USAID. She was posted in Indonesia, Uganda and the Philippines, and worked on clean energy, biodiversity conservation, water and sanitation, and forestry issues, in addition to climate resilience. Rebecca earned a Master’s and Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson.