Laura Engeman

With a joint appointment between the Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation and California Sea Grant, Laura Engeman helps coastal communities understand the impacts of climate change and helps to inform adaptation strategies. 

--

Based in La Jolla, Laura specializes in providing California coastal communities with scientific research and tools to understand the impacts of climate change and inform adaptation strategies.  She has spent her career working at the intersection of science and policy, starting as a Sea Grant Fellow, and then as a coastal project manager with the California Ocean Protection Council and the State Coastal Conservancy where she expanded the state’s investments in coastal data, developed offshore energy policy work groups, and co-managed a significant dam removal project.  Prior to joining Scripps Institution of Oceanography, she directed the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative where she led a NOAA-funded county-wide initiative to support sea-level rise science training and planning. Laura has a M.A. in International Environmental Policy with a coastal management emphasis from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. 

Expertise

• Coastal resilience
• Sea-level rise science and education
• Observations and forecasting climate change impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems and communities
• Adaptation planning, policy, and financing

Research FOCUS AREAS

Laura focuses on the application of scientific modeling, observations and tools to guide local and state coastal hazard, resilience, and sea-level rise adaptation planning and investments.  She investigates methods for tracking climate change trends and assessing experimental adaptation strategies.  Her research also includes financing mechanisms and policies that advance climate change preparedness.

Extension and Outreach

Laura engages with coastal managers, research scientists, industry, policymakers and a broad range of diverse communities.  She currently co-chairs the California Sea Level Rise Science Task Force and serves on the NASA Sea Level Research Team Practitioner Board, the San Diego Regional Sea-Level Rise Working Group and is a Strategic Advisor for the Climate Science Alliance. 

She has previously served on several other state and local committees including: the Technical Advisory Council of the Governor’s Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resilient Program and the California Green Bond Development Committee. 

Projects and products

Updating California's 2023 Sea Level Rise Report and Guidance

National Application Guide To Helping Communities Plan For Sea Level Rise

California’s Coastal Dune Science Network

The Sea Level Education, Awareness and Literacy Project (a NASA Science Activation and Sea Grant partnership)

Resilient Futures Imperial Beach

Binational Coastal Resilience Extension Fellowship

Coastal Mendocino Extension Fellowship

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS