Areas of Interest
Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (specifically Managed Retreat), Environmental Justice & Equitable Development, and Disaster Management

Programs
Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning
Urban and Regional Planning

Specialization
Environmental Policy and Planning (Primary), Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (Secondary)


CONNECT

Curriculum Vitae

/ PhD Student

Sarah Dobie

Sarah is a doctoral student in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. Her current research focuses on climate change adaptation and resilience, specifically focusing on financing, managing, and evaluating coastal retreat programs. During the 2020-21 school year, Sarah will be working as a Graduate Research Fellow for NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research. The project is titled, “Prioritizing buyout assets: An exploration of quantification methods involving measures of fiscal impact, social equity, and environmental health.”

In 2020, the book, Our Changing Coasts, will be published by Island Press, featuring a chapter that Sarah co-authored with Joyce Coffee, President and Founder of Climate Resilience Consulting. Our Changing Coasts arose out of a collaborative effort between Penn State Risk Center’s Policy Incubator, Penn Design’s McHarg Center, and MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism. The chapter is titled, “Contrasting Stories of Resilience from Two Cities Addressing Rising Sea Levels.” In 2019, Sarah also co-led the development of the Climate Bond Initiative’s Climate Resilience Principles—a framework used to assess the resilience of green bonds and other climate resilience investments—as a sub-consultant for Climate Resilience Consulting.

Prior to her doctoral education, Sarah earned a BS/MS in Environmental Sustainability, Health and Safety & Environmental, Health and Safety Management at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She worked as a research associate throughout her time at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as well as completed a Research Experience for Undergraduates at Arizona State University as part of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network. Her other professional experience includes working as the climate action plan manager at Rochester Institute of Technology, and as a sustainability intern at Constellation Brands, Rochester Regional Health, and Carestream Health.  

Selected Publications

  • S. Dobie, J. Schneider, & A. Szafranski, “Going beyond the Waffle House index: Using food systems as an indicator of community health and sustainability” 2019 International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security (IEEE HST 2019), Waltham, MA. November 2019. Forthcoming.
  • S. Dobie, J. Schneider, M. Kesgin, & R. Lagewiski. (2018). “Hotels as critical hubs for destination resilience: an analysis of hotel corporations’ CSR activities supporting disaster relief and resilience” Infrastructures Special Issue on Resilient Infrastructure Systems. 
  • J. Schneider, J. Hummel, J. Rosenbeck, & S. Dobie. (2018). “Community resilience management: reflections and strategies from corporate sustainability” Journal of Environmental Sustainability, 6(1): 15-36.
  • J. Schneider, C. Romanowski, S. Mishra, R. K. Raj, & S. Dobie, “Building robust risk management as a method of situational awareness at the local level” 2018 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security (IEEE HST 2018), Woburn, MA. October 2018. 
  • S. Dobie & J. Schneider, “Development of a process improvement matrix to measure community level sustainability:  a collaborative case study of Rochester, NY, USA” 2017 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security (IEEE HST 2017), Waltham, MA. May 2017.