About Me
I’m a climate resilience specialist and community engagement practitioner with 10 years of experience working across community organizing, climate adaptation, and public-sector systems. My work is rooted in environmental justice organizing, which I’ve been actively involved in since I was a student, and shaped by years of hands-on experience supporting frontline communities to plan, engage, and implement their own climate solutions.
I focus on supporting frontline communities, youth leaders, and local partners to shape climate solutions grounded in lived experience, cultural knowledge, and collective power. I work intentionally within and often in tension with existing systems. I’ve seen firsthand where well-intentioned organizations fall short: when leadership is not accountable to community, when engagement becomes performative, or when solutions fail to respond to the real and urgent conditions facing low-income and frontline communities. These experiences have deeply informed my approach.
Much of my work addresses the gap between planning and implementation, and the capacity barriers that prevent communities from moving from ideas to action. I’ve partnered with municipalities, funders, and research institutions while consistently challenging top-down approaches that extract community knowledge without building lasting capacity or self-determination. I bring an organizing lens to climate resilience work, designing engagement and technical assistance that respects time, labor, culture, and local leadership while accounting for real constraints such as limited staffing, funding, and technical support.
Through my work with programs like the South Central Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP), I co-develeoped a framework centered on relationship-building, accountability, and self-determination. I bridge quantitative climate and health data with qualitative knowledge, lived experience, and storytelling to support planning that is both rigorous and rooted. I’ve developed and facilitated equity tools, youth programs, participatory research, and community planning processes across Texas and the Gulf South.
I’ve also led and supported youth leadership and workforce programs, mentored emerging leaders, and consistently used creative, culturally grounded approaches including storytelling, arts, visual media, and political education when necessary to build understanding, power, and shared vision. I bring deep relationships, practical organizing skills, and a commitment to following through, and I’m most interested in work that honors community leadership, challenges extractive systems, and creates space for arts, healing, political education, and collective power in the face of climate change.
Research & Publications
Jean, Cassandra & Rendon, Celine & Even, Trevor & Petersen, Alexander. (2025). Wisdom of the Past, Power for the Future: Centering Local Traditions in Community Organizing to Codevelop Climate Adaptation Practices. Weather, Climate, and Society. 17. 849-864. 10.1175/WCAS-D-24-0133.1.
Community-Centered Regional Resilience Collaboration, Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP)
Research Dates: 2024–2025
Investigators: Cassandra Jean, Celine Rendon, Sascha Petersen
Affiliate Organization: Adaptation International
Link: https://southernclimate.org/research/project/community-centered-regional-resilience-collaboration/Celine Rendon, Khalid K. Osman, Kasey M. Faust, Path towards community resilience: Examining stakeholders’ coordination at the intersection of the built, natural, and social systems, Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 68, 2021, 102774, ISSN 2210-6707, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102774.
Contributing to the Legacy of Austin’s Racism in Land Development Planning, People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources (PODER)
Link: https://communitynotcommodity.com/wp-content/uploads/CodeNEXT-Legacy-of-Austins-Racism-in-LDC.pdf
Press & Media (Referenced or Quoted)
“Staying HOME: Community Group Flexes Muscle to Limit Austin Zoning Displacements,” Austin Free Press, June 4, 2024
Link: https://austinfreepress.org/staying-home-community-group-flexes-muscle-to-limit-austin-zoning-displacements/“As Trump Works to Crush Climate Efforts, Local Projects Persevere at the Grassroots” Public Health Watch, October 17, 2025
Link: https://publichealthwatch.org/2025/10/17/as-trump-works-to-crush-climate-efforts-local-projects-persevere-at-the-grassroots/“Racial Equity and Urban Climate Action” Planetizen. June 7, 2020.
Link: https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/109526-racial-equity-and-urban-climate-action
Conference Sessions, Panels & Webinars
Planet Texas 2050 Resilience Roundtable, January 19, 2022.
Link: https://calendar.utexas.edu/event/planet_texas_2050_resilience_roundtable#about_streamSCIPP Leads 2024 South Central Climate Resilience Forum, Youth Engagement and Climate Justice Workshop, Cassandra Jean (Adaptation International, SCIPP), Celine Rendon (Adaptation International, SCIPP), Alexia Leclercq (Start: Empowerment), Jasmine Butler (Start: Empowerment)
9th Annual Peace & Conflict Studies Symposium — ACC Center for Peace & Conflict Studies, May 10, 2023.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFA37lJjRu4Panel Discussion: Linking Equity, Research, and Implementation — Climate Planning in Austin
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I71QmIRnEzUTRACS Virtual Student Summit 2022 — Career Panel, April 18, 2022. Panelists included faculty and practitioners from UT Austin, EcoRise, Texas Campaign for the Environment, and Southwestern University
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qAR9EMYBtQ
