Announcing the 2026 Urban Ocean Lab Senior Fellows

Cities are on the front lines of climate risk, but many continue to face the same practical barriers: how to move from planning to implementation, how to align funding with priorities, and how to navigate complex systems that shape what actually gets built.

To help address these challenges, Urban Ocean Lab is pleased to announce the 2026 Senior Fellows cohort:

• Nicole Neditch
  Nicole’s work focuses on transforming municipal procurement systems—one of the most powerful and underutilized levers cities have—to better integrate climate resilience and equity into how public dollars are spent.

• Anna Weber
  Anna is advancing policy and implementation strategies to help cities make better use of land acquired through climate-related buyouts, turning underutilized parcels into long-term resilience assets.

• Adam Parris
  Adam’s work centers on improving how cities make complex resilience investment decisions, developing approaches that better connect community priorities to funding and implementation.

Together, these projects address critical gaps in how cities decide, spend, and build—three core systems that shape climate outcomes.

Over the next year, the fellows will work closely with Urban Ocean Lab and a network of city leaders, practitioners, and partners to develop practical, actionable solutions that can be applied across jurisdictions.

We’re excited to support this cohort and to contribute to a growing body of work focused not just on climate ambition, but on implementation.

If you’re interested in connecting with our new Senior Fellows or with other projects at Urban Ocean Lab, please reach out to us at info@urbanoceanlab.org.