Expert Bio

Lauren Herzer Risi is the Program Director of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center. 

She works with policymakers, practitioners, donors, and researchers to generate innovative, transdisciplinary solutions to development and security challenges related to environmental change and natural resource management. She has authored and edited a number of reports, including: 21st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy is Climate Policy; Navigating Complexity: Climate, Migration, and Conflict in a Changing World; After the Disaster: Rebuilding Communities; Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation; and Our Shared Future: Environmental Pathways to Peace. 

Risi is the managing editor of New Security Beat; co-producer of a series of podcasts exploring the unintended consequences of responses to climate change; and co-producer of a series on water, conflict, and peacebuilding. She served as a Crisis Corps volunteer with the Peace Corps and FEMA in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. 

Risi holds a master’s degree in environmental security and peace from the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica.