Johanna Lawton is the Deputy Director at Rebuild by Design, driving resilient infrastructure initiatives at local, state, and national levels, as well as collaborative stakeholder engagements to develop community-centered climate adaption solutions. Lawton’s work focuses on equitable long-term planning and policy-development for climate relocation and displacement, extreme heat adaptation, and flood mitigation, with an emphasis on multi-benefit, nature-forward infrastructure. 

Through research and design, she has contributed to various publications to advance the use of multi-benefit infrastructure, including the reports “Climate Displacement in NYC: Making Space for our Neighbors,” “Atlas of Disaster,” “An Anthology of Ideas after Hurricane Ida,” and “Toward Rainproof NYC: Turning the Concrete Jungle into a Sponge.” In her role she also supported the publication of the report “Resilient Infrastructure for New York State” and its accompanying political strategy which resulted in a $4.2B ballot initiative to support sustainable and resilient infrastructure in New York State. 

Previously, Lawton worked for the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs as the Managing Editor of the Refuge Press, where she worked at the intersection of human rights, social justice, global development, and literature. 

Lawton is also a founding member of Resilience PAC, a member-driven political action committee dedicated to ensuring NYC adapts to climate change equitably by helping climate-forward candidates get elected to local offices.

She holds a B.A. in Environmental Policy from Colby College and is currently pursuing a Masters in Urban Planning at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.  She is committed to working on environmental justice issues, and draws on her experiences as a lifelong New Yorker to identify local and national disaster-related inequities.