Kleinfelder’s Industry Leading Climate Change Group Expands with Two New Hires

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Dec. 12, 2013 - PRLog -- Kleinfelder announced today the hiring of two new climate change professionals, Nasser Brahim and Vijaylaxsmi (Vijay) Kesavan, who join the company’s innovative and expanding climate change practice.

Nasser Brahim

Brahim joins Kleinfelder from the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds (https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/), where he worked on international climate change adaptation and mitigation programs. His familiarity with international best practices in climate resilient planning and investment and experience engaging and communicating with diverse clients and stakeholders will greatly benefit all of our climate change projects.

Prior to the World Bank, Brahim worked with the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (http://climate.yale.edu/), Overseas Private Investment Corporation (http://www.opic.gov/), and a variety of private and public sector organizations. He has over a decade of experience leading local, national, and international programs focusing on climate change and the environment.

Brahim has also published extensively about climate resilience, mainly under the Climate Investment Funds banner, including on institutional coordination, stakeholder engagement, and lessons learned from adaptation planning. He has also written research reports on the economic impacts of proposed climate legislation on specific sectors in the U.S., forest carbon credit markets, and instruments to increase private investment in renewable energy.

Vijay Kesavan

Kesavan joins Kleinfelder from the School for the Environment at University of Massachusetts-Boston (http://www.umb.edu/academics/environment). Part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (http://www.noaa.gov/) Climate and Societal Interactions research initiative, her Master’s thesis explored how to leverage GIS to capture local knowledge and perceptions as a way to drive community-based adaptation planning.

Kesavan’s case study in East Boston is a proof of concept that explores how to visualize social resilience and use maps to deepen stakeholder engagement for more robust vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning. This research will be integrated into a federal guidance document that covers participatory focused climate change adaptation strategies favoring a systematic cultural analysis.

Both Brahim and Kesavan will assist Kleinfelder’s expert team by conducting climate change assessments and preparedness studies for clients in the energy, facilities, government, transportation and water markets. The company’s climate change vulnerability and risk assessment practice, already implemented by cities and organizations on the eastern seaboard, was developed with academia and is an industry-leading method of ranking and prioritizing climate change vulnerabilities across a variety of assets and systems, including infrastructure, natural environments and socio-economic aspects such as public health and environmental justice.  The rankings are then translated into implementable actions to protect human health and the environment, and help prepare cities and industry prepare for a changing climate.

Click here (http://www.kleinfelder.com/index.cfm/climate-change/) to learn more about Kleinfelder’s climate change risk and resiliency services.

About Kleinfelder
Kleinfelder is an employee-owned architecture, engineering, and science consulting firm providing solutions to meet our world's complex infrastructure and natural resource challenges. A global firm with nearly 2,000 employee-owners, Kleinfelder provides planning, engineering, scientific, technical and management solutions. With 50 years of experience, Kleinfelder's reputation of providing innovative, commonsense solutions to the most complex challenges has solidified its status as a trusted partner to its clients and a leader in the industry. Working as a team, our bright people will deliver the right solutions.