Community Engagement Core (CEC)

The Center’s engagement efforts will be focused on well-documented priorities of stakeholder groups in the Texas Triangle, including urban and urbanizing neighborhoods within the contexts of Austin, Houston, and Dallas that is widely applicable to other areas at risk from environmental emergency events and climate change. To help achieve this goal, the CEC will develop, test, and disseminate data-driven community engagement outcomes and interventions that increase local resilience to existing disaster risk and the future effects of climate change, particularly in underserved communities.

Our mission will be accomplished by addressing key elements of bi-directional engagement.

Disseminate data related to factors that influence environmental conditions, both currently and with climate change
Develop collaborative, participatory-based, green-infrastructure focused prevention and intervention strategies
Support adaptive capacity in communities during acute environmental emergency events in environmental justice communities
Utilize citizen science for community engagement to identify disparities among environmental conditions and suggest potential policy solutions

The leaders of the CEC have an established track record of collaborative, interdisciplinary, and community engaged research and are well positioned to transmit community priorities to Center members and facilitate the translation of Center research findings to achieve more informed decision-making across the continuum of stakeholders from individuals to communities and policy-makers.