Executive Producer
Jesse M. Keenan, PhD
Jesse M. Keenan is an Associate Professor of Real Estate at the School of Architecture at Tulane University. Keenan’s principle research focus is on climate change adaptation and the built environment, including aspects of design, engineering, financing and planning. Keenan has previously advised on matters concerning the built environment for agencies of the U.S. government, governors, mayors, Fortune 500 companies, technology ventures, community enterprises and international NGOs.
Advisory Committee
Dan Ackerstein
Ackerstein, the principal of Ackerstein Sustainability, has based his career on making the concept of sustainability accessible, useful, and meaningful in the business world. For the last decade that pursuit has been focused on sustainable building operations and the development, implementation, and application of the LEED for Existing Buildings.
In 2008, he formed Ackerstein Sustainability, LLC, providing sustainability consulting, training, and LEED certification project management for a wide variety of clients, including commercial properties, municipalities, private companies, and educational institutions.
Ackerstein has been involved with LEED for Existing Buildings at every level since the program's origination.
Anita van Breda
Van Breda is Senior Director, Environment and Disaster Management at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). She has a knack for starting from scratch. As a masters’ candidate at Yale, she initiated the School of Forestry and the Environmental Studies’ first Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems. And when she saw the need and opportunity for WWF to build relationships with humanitarian aid organizations to reduce disaster risk and vulnerability, she stepped up to start the organization’s humanitarian partnership work.
Monika Serrano
Mónika Serrano leads the resilience program at Turner Construction. She has held roles in most phases of the construction process in her 19 years in the industry. Mónika considers climate change one of the biggest threats to humanity and is constantly pushing the bar in the aspects of climate adaptation in the built environment. She is a Climate Reality Project leader, a member of the ASTM Property Resilience Assessment task force and the LEED Resilience Working Group, and a past USGBC NJ chapter board member. Mónika has presented at numerous venues on the value of resilience, climate adaptation in the built environment, resilient design and construction. She constantly collaborates with folks in the design, engineering, construction, risk, insurance, and legal industries as she believes in the power of partnerships to move the needle towards a vital world.
Shaun Martin
As Vice-President of Adaptation and Resilience and Deputy Lead on Climate Change at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Martin helps conservation programs become "climate smart," making sure they are prepared to address the inevitable consequences of climate change—increased drought, more severe storms, melting glaciers, shifting seasons—and their effects on biodiversity, people, and the ecosystems that they rely upon. He spends the majority of his time training WWF field staff on how to adapt their conservation practices to take climatic changes in their region into account. To date he has educated nearly 1,000 WWF staff and partners from dozens of countries across the globe.
Dr. Ladd Keith
Ladd Keith, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in Planning at the University of Arizona. He is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of urban planning and climate change to create more sustainable and resilient cities. With over a decade of experience working with diverse stakeholders in cities across the U.S. solving complex urban challenges, he is particularly interested in research that informs practice. His current research explores the emergent planning, design, and governance of cities for extreme heat. He also founded and leads the Sustainable Built Environments degree program which is offered in-person, fully online, and at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas in Lima, Peru.