Rebecca French
Director of Community Engagement
Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation
Rebecca is the Director of Community Engagement for the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA). In this role, Rebecca works with a team of outreach and extension professionals from across the University of Connecticut to develop relationships with community leaders in at risk communities, state policy makers and relevant state, local and regional organizations to solicit their input into the work of the Institute and to ensure the dissemination of information developed by the CIRCA faculty and staff.
Previously Rebecca was a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Office of Research and Development on the staff of the Chief Innovation Officer. She led initiatives on using innovative tools from crowdsourcing and citizen science to ideation to prizes to address the impacts of climate change and to improve air quality in communities. Rebecca also spent a year in Congress as a Congressional Science Fellow, sponsored by the American Geophysical Union, in the Office of US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Rebecca served as a policy advisor to the Senator in the areas of energy, environment, and agriculture.
Rebecca holds a Ph.D. in geosciences from Virginia Tech and an M.S. in soil science from Cornell University. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College in chemistry and environmental studies.