Katie Graziano is a senior resilience and coastal management specialist at ERG. She brings over 10 years of experience in interdisciplinary science, applied ecology, marine policy, coastal resilience, and stakeholder engagement to ERG. Katie has led and supported projects to assess the vulnerability of state and federal assets to hazards, evaluate the effectiveness and economic benefits of coastal management programs, and design strategic plans for coastal and marine resource management. She is also skilled in social science research tools, qualitative and quantitative data synthesis, and science communication.

Before joining ERG, Katie led coastal adaptation, planning, and community-based resilience projects on both U.S. coastlines, the Great Lakes region, and the Pacific Islands. As a coastal resilience specialist in New York City, she collaborated with community leaders; city, state, and federal agencies; academic institutions; and other partners to enhance resilience to sea level rise through the Community Flood Watch Project, NYC FloodNet, and other data-driven community science efforts. In the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, she worked under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Conservation Program to implement and monitor nature-based solutions for watershed and coral reef health.

Katie holds a master’s in marine and environmental affairs from the University of Washington, where she studied the human dimensions of climate adaptation and conservation agreements in fishing communities in the Philippines. She also holds a bachelor’s in natural resources from Cornell University, with a focus on applied ecology. In her free time, she enjoys outdoor adventures with her dog and being in the water—surfing, freediving, swimming, paddling, or just enjoying the beach.