Keynote Speaker
Jennifer R. Cox, M.A.
“How do we manage climate change?”
Sponsored by Kean University’s Center for Earth System Education
Climate change is real. It reduces the predictability of our weather, exacerbates existing social vulnerabilities, and raises concern over the sustainability of our current land use, transportation, and energy policies. Regional Plan Association (RPA) is an independent, not-for-profit regional planning organization that improves the quality of life and the economic competitiveness of the 31-county New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region through research, planning, and advocacy. Since the 1920s, RPA has been shaping transportation systems, protecting open spaces, and promoting better community design for the region's continued growth. We anticipate the challenges the region will face in the years to come, and we mobilize the region's civic, business, and government sectors to take action. RPA has set the precedent for sensible long-term comprehensive planning with our Regional Design, Greensward, and Mobility programs. This legacy places RPA in a strategic position to influence local climate change programs and develop a strategy for regional coordination to mitigate as well as adapt to climate change. RPA’s climate change program is currently designed to strengthen regional coordination across and to align local climate and energy policies to measurably reduce the metropolitan region’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Jennifer Cox is a Senior Planner at Regional Plan Association (RPA) where she currently directs the climate change program. The program is focused on developing regional mitigation and adaptation strategies to increase local resiliency and regional sustainability. Jennifer’s research explores long-term planning initiatives, cross disciplinary approaches, and co-benefits of actions, projects, and policies to address climate change. Since 2001, Jennifer has directed the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department at RPA where she develops applications for comprehensive growth analysis and implications research, public policy assessments, trend analyses, and scenario or alternative futures planning. For the department, Jennifer maintains and coordinates a wide range of local, regional, and national geo-spatial project teams and datasets. Ms. Cox is a Ph.D. Candidate in Earth and Environmental Sciences at City University of New York Graduate Center. Her research interests focus on suburbanization and urban heat island effect. Jennifer has been a consultant to the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities. She has a M.A. in Geography from CUNY Hunter College and a B.A. in Geography from SUNY New Paltz. Prior to RPA, Jennifer has served as an Assistant GIS Manager for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Region 2 Office and as a GIS Specialist for the Town of East Fishkill, NY.