ABOUT THE EXPERT:

Debra M. Butler (she/her/hers) is the executive director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. Her transdisciplinary research focuses on climate displacement, migration, and resettlement on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Butler has collaborated with Indigenous and placed-based communities in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Sancti Spiritus, Cuba to examine dynamics of adaptation and resilience in ecological and human communities. Butler was awarded research fellowships from the NAS Gulf Research Science Policy Program, National Science Foundation-IGERT and the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&MU-Corpus-Christi.

Butler’s commitment to Gulf communities is reflected in her service on numerous not-for-profit boards and community organizations including the Climigration Network, Stone Living Lab and Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences-NCAR. As a National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Policy Fellow, she worked with EPA (Region IV Gulf of Mexico Program) with climate impacted ecological and cultural restoration projects in Turkey Creek MS, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and Dauphin Island, AL. Butler has earned an MBA in International Business from Brandeis University, EdM from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in environmental studies from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She is a Gulf Coast native.

CONTACT:

Contact Debra M Butler at Experts@diversegreen.org.