Daniela Garcia Moreno

About Daniela:

I am a senior at Cornell University studying Environment and Sustainability with a concentration in Environmental Biology and Applied Ecology and a minor in Climate Change. I started working at the Christopherson Center in August 2021, and have loved every second of it! My interest in community planning stemmed from my work with the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network. In summer 2021, I spent three months in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as a Resilient Urban Latin America research fellow conducting interdisciplinary research on community resilience and flood risk. I conducted interviews with community members to learn about their perception of risk and how they prepare for and respond to flood events. The data collected from these interviews is now serving as the basis for my senior honor's thesis, where I am investigating the factors that contribute to community resilience in the face of natural hazards. I hope to continue engaging with communities in my academic work after Cornell, and I hope to pursue a Master's degree to continue investigating the impact of community engagement on resilience, because I think this scale is critical for enacting change and developing communities that meet the needs of their residents. 

​

At the Christopherson Center:

I am working to develop an annual climate resilience program for upstate New York communities. I hope that this program will spark conversations about the importance of community planning for resilience, and that it will provide participating communities with tools to address their most pressing challenges.