New York City Coastal Resilience: A Dialogue

The AIANY Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee (DfRR) is pleased to introduce Laurian Farrell, the Deputy Commissioner for the Bureau of Coastal Resilience, a new office within New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) responsible for leading those efforts for our 520 miles of shoreline. Farrell will be in conversation with Franco Montalto, a civil engineer who is President of eDesign Dynamics, Professor of Engineering at Drexel University, and a member of the NYC Panel on Climate Change (NPCC). As a water resources engineer and landscape architect, Farrell has developed a deep understanding of the challenges facing ultra-urban coastal cities worldwide. Montalto’s work focuses on the development of ecologically, economically, and socially sensible solutions to urban environmental problems with a focus on climate change. The evening promises to be a lively discussion on these important issues and is designed to allow the audience to participate in the conversation during the event and post-event networking.

Speakers:
Laurian Farrell, Deputy Commissioner for Coastal Resilience, NYC Department of Environmental Protection
Franco Montalto, Founder and President, eDesign Dynamics; Professor of Engineering, Drexel University; Member, NYC Panel on Climate Change (NPCC)

About the Speakers:
Laurian Farrell is the Deputy Commissioner for the Bureau of Coastal Resilience at the City of New York—a new bureau tasked with leading the coastal resilience efforts for NYC’s 520-mile shoreline. She has worked in the private, public, and philanthropic sectors for more than 20 years. She is a water resources engineer with a master’s in landscape architecture and centers equity in her practice. After a few years as a stormwater engineer at Marshall Macklin Monaghan (now WSP) in Toronto, Farrell spent 12 years at the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), a watershed-focused regulatory authority serving the Greater Toronto Area. At TRCA, she led the Flood Management & Infrastructure Program and sought ways to plan for and protect against flood risks more effectively. For the City of Brampton, Ontario, Farrell was the Senior Manager of the Environment Department, and was responsible for climate adaptation planning, stormwater management and the project management of The Riverwalk, a flagship downtown revitalization and flood mitigation project. In 2019, Farrell moved to New York City to join the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities. She worked most recently as a Global Director, Knowledge Transformation at the Resilient Cities Network, where she developed a deep understanding of the challenges facing ultra-urban coastal cities worldwide.

Franco Montalto is a licensed civil and environmental engineer with 30 years of research, planning, and design experience in the fields of ecological restoration, green infrastructure, and urban sustainability and resilience. He is a Professor at Drexel University, where he directs the Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Lab, and is also the Founder and President of eDesign Dynamics LLC, an environmental consulting firm based in New York City with an international portfolio of projects. He is a member of the 4th New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC4), where he co-chairs the Flooding Working Group, and also served as an invited author of the recently released Northeast Chapter of the 5th National Climate Assessment (NCA5).