Johanna Lovecchio is the Director of Program Design for Climate Action at the Climate School at Columbia University. She specializes in climate adaptation planning, policy, and  project design that is forward-looking and conscious of community-based and ecosystem resilience and climate justice. As a part of her role, she delivers strategic support, technical design and climate systems research, and local workshops to advance climate action and resilience  project design and implementation in partnership with local governments and civil society around the world.  

Prior to joining Columbia Climate School, Johanna worked as the Associate Director of the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes in GSAPP, where she ran the Resilience Accelerator program. Prior joining Columbia, she was Senior Analyst and Program Manager at HR&A Advisors, where she scaled resilience capacity-building models, including the National Disaster Resilience Competition and Global Resilience Academy programs, developed city- and district-wide climate adaptation plans, such as the Lower Manhattan Climate Resilience Study, and supported the design and evaluation of transformational urban resilience infrastructure investments. As City Planner at the New York City Department of City Planning, she researched planning opportunities in post-industrial, waterfront communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

Johanna holds a Masters of Urban Planning from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Environmental Studies and Metropolitan Studies from the New York University College of Arts and Sciences. She is a frequent guest speaker and her favorite part of her job is learning from and with her students as Adjunct Faculty. She spends every moment she possibly can by, on, or in the ocean.