Deborah Brosnan brings 25 years of experience and research in environmental risk reduction and resilience. She is the president and founder of Deborah Brosnan & Associates, an international scientific consulting company that provides sustainable solutions to environmental risks and climate change. Brosnan also has a long career in academia. She is currently an adjunct professor of biology at Virginia Tech University, having held positions and fellowships at several institutions, including Stanford University; the University of California, Davis; the Smithsonian Institution; and the University of Washington. She has testified before the US Congress on the integration of science and policy and represented Governments at the UN General Assembly and represented professional entities at UN treaty meetings. She has been published in major journals and media publications and co-edited two scholarly books, most recently “The Disaster Resiliency Challenge: Transforming Theory to Action” (with Jack Harrald and James Bohland, eds). She received a PhD in Marine Ecology from Oregon State University.