The Extreme Heat and Health Governance Symposium

Scott Barclay, PhD, is the Interim Vice President of Research in ASU's Knowledge Enterprise and a Professor of Political Science. He previously served as Associate Vice President of Research in Knowledge Enterprise. He also served as the Chief Operating Officer of the NSF Inaugural Engines: Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE) from its inception until February 2025. From 2017 to 2023, Dr. Barclay served as the Director of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in ASU's New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.

He received his doctorate in political science from Northwestern University and his bachelor's degree (with first class honors) from the University of Queensland in Australia.

He previously served (2009-2011 and 2016-2017) as a Program Director in the Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation. He has held positions at Drexel University, University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), University at Albany, University of Washington, and U.C. Santa Cruz. 

In his current role, he oversees all of the proposal development to award implementation pipeline within ASU's Knowledge Enterprise: Washington DC-based Research Engagement Office; the Research Development Office; and, the Research Project Management Office. He also has responsibility for strategically coordinating pursuit and implementation of ASU’s array of projects around some of KE’s large core research initiatives: energy for AI; critical minerals; innovative energy storage; fusion; and, the development of quantum molecular sensing. 

Patricia Solís, PhD, is Executive Director of the Center for Heat Preparedness at Arizona State University and Research Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. Her work focuses on participatory geospatial technologies, spatial data as a digital public good, and climate-related hazards, especially extreme heat. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed works, secured $74M in research funding, and co-founded YouthMappers, a global network working with humanitarian mapping projects in 80 countries. Her expertise has informed Arizona heat policy and planning, including the state’s first heat preparedness plan, and she was invited to the first White House Summit on Extreme Heat. Solís is a Fellow of the American Association of Geographers, a Fulbright Specialist, and the first woman elected President of the PanAmerican Institute of Geography and History. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The New Yorker, NPR, National Geographic, and other national outlets.

Deirdre Dalpiaz Bishop is the associate director for economic programs at the U.S. Census Bureau.

The directorate conducts more than 60 monthly, quarterly, and annual surveys covering various sectors of the economy, including 12 economic indicators and an economic census and census of governments in years ending in two and seven. The directorate also conducts reimbursable surveys for other government agencies.

Prior to her current role, Bishop was chief of the Geography Division, where she led a staff in the development of a national geospatial database, the Census Bureau’s MAF/TIGER System. This database of addresses, roads, and boundaries creates the foundation used to support data collection, tabulation, and dissemination for the agency’s censuses and surveys. As a member of the United States Federal Geographic Data Committee, Bishop led the development and publication of the 2025-2035 National Spatial Data Infrastructure Strategic Plan.

For the past several years, Bishop has served as executive champion for the Frames Program, focused on modernizing and linking the agency’s foundational frames of addresses, businesses, jobs, and people. She also served as chief of the Decennial Census Management Division, assistant chief of the Census Redistricting Data Office, and programs coordinator in the New York Regional Office. Bishop is currently co-chair of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management and vice president of the Pan American Institute of Geography History.

Bishop received her master's degree in public administration from New York University and her bachelor's degree in urban studies from Lehigh University. She is a graduate of the Department of Commerce's Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program and a four-time recipient of the Census Bureau's Bronze Medal Award.

Margaret Hinrichs, PhD, is an Assistant Research Professor in the School of Complex Adaptive Systems at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the inclusion of diverse communities and stakeholder organizations in decision-making processes, particularly through the use of data informatics and models as boundary objects. Her work spans critical intersections of education, transportation infrastructure, and extreme heat resilience, leading to recommendations for harnessing the natural complexity of diverse groups and interests for inclusive, community-centered convergence research.

Hinrichs is a co-author of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience (KER) Recommendations Report to the Office of the Governor on Extreme Heat Preparedness in Arizona and a co-editor of the Knowledge Exchange Playbook to Build Resilience.

The governance gap for extreme heat across all levels of government is now well-documented, and communities and institutions are mobilizing to implement new frameworks and approaches. This discussion brings together diverse perspectives on hazards governance to examine the contemporary landscape of local, state, and national efforts to manage extreme heat and provide critical questions and suggestions for the path forward. The integration of community wisdom and values into formal and informal heat governance mechanisms will be a point of emphasis.

Ladd Keith, PhD, is a climate planner whose research focuses on heat planning, policy, and governance, helping communities, regions, and nations build heat resilience. He argues that our cities were built for a climate that no longer exists, and that we are living through a "heatshed moment" — a turning point at which extreme heat, already the deadliest weather hazard in the United States, must be addressed as urgently as any other climate risk.

He defined heat governance in a Nature comment, and co-authored Planning for Urban Heat Resilience, the American Planning Association’s first guidebook on heat for planning practitioners.

He has led and co-led heat research programs funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, NOAA, and the CDC, including the Center for Heat Resilient Communities and the Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory. Internationally, he serves on the management committee of the Global Heat Health Information Network, a joint initiative of the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.

At the University of Arizona, he founded the Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Built Environments and later expanded it fully online and at a campus in Peru. He served a full term on the City of Tucson's Planning Commission, where he chaired the development and adoption of the city's comprehensive plan. In 2025, he was named Western Planner of the Year and a University of Arizona Distinguished Scholar, and in 2026 received the inaugural University of Arizona Convergence Award for Excellence in Applied Research and Engineering.

A frequent commentator on extreme heat for national and international media, he delivered the TEDx talk “A Heatshed Moment for Communities in Crisis.” He writes Heatshed, a newsletter on how we plan for and govern extreme heat.

Melanie Gall is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs where she co-directs the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security and manages the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS). She is a trained hazards geographer studying the interaction between natural hazards and society. Her expertise lies in risk metrics (e.g., disaster losses, indices, risk assessments), hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation planning as well as environmental modeling. The applied nature of hazards research allows her to work closely with emergency management agencies from local to federal levels. She has conducted post-disaster field work in Mozambique, Haiti, and in the United States. Her publications appeared in journals such as Nature Climate Change, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and Natural Hazards Review. She is a certified floodplain manager and holds a doctorate from the University of South Carolina (Geography), a master's degree from the University of Salzburg in Austria (Geography/GIS), and a bachelor's degree from the University of Heidelberg in Germany (Geography).

Nicholas Weller is an Assistant Research Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society (SFIS) at Arizona State University (ASU). Through his work, he promotes engagement among scientists, public audiences, policy makers, and cultural organizations. He conducts this work in service of creating a just, free, and sustainable future. He studies the use of deliberative public forums to capture public values and shape science and policy on uncertain, contested, and technical topics. Currently, he works with ASU’s Center for Innovation in Informal STEM Learning (CIISL) to help professionals at museums and other cultural organizations develop sustainability-related programs. He also works with ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO) to better link science with public values.

David Hondula, Ph.D., is the Director of Heat Response and Mitigation for the City of Phoenix, Arizona. In that role, he leads the country’s first publicly-funded local government office focused on protecting people from dangerous summer heat and improving quality of life. He joined the City in 2021.
Hondula also serves on the faculty at Arizona State University’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. His scholarly work on extreme heat includes more than 100 peer-reviewed research articles, book chapters, and technical reports. He earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia in 2013.

Much of the preparedness and response to extreme heat falls to people concurrently managing wildfires, outages, or storms with systems built for shorter events. Heat rarely arrives alone. It intensifies the hazards communities already face and extends their consequences across infrastructure, health systems, and the workforce responsible for managing all of it. This panel brings meteorological, emergency management, and economic perspectives to what heat’s multiplying and amplifying effect asks of existing systems: how forecasts become decisions, how preparedness holds across a season, and how the case for acting is made. Join us for a practical conversation about the many inputs that shape our approach to extreme heat.

Chief Meteorologist Sunny Wescott specializes in extreme weather events impacting emergency response, supply chain, and critical infrastructure. As a Lead Meteorologist in the US Air Force, Ms. Wescott was the Top Forecaster for her regions and is now considered a subject matter expert for meteorological hazards to the 16 critical infrastructure sectors. Ms. Wescott graduated top of her class for her degrees in Homeland Security Management, Public Safety Administration, and Atmospheric Sciences and provides direct support to partners across the world, breaking down data silos and educating society, staff, operators, and executives through countless engagements, connecting scientists to industry needs. 

Jason brings more than 30 years of federal, Tribal, and interagency wildfire and emergency management experience, beginning on Oregon hotshot and repelling crews and progressing through national coordination and leadership roles with Forest Service, Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). After retiring as BIA’s National Director of Emergency Management in 2025, he now serves as Director of Emergency Management and Tribal Coordinator with Launch Consulting. He specializes in culturally respectful planning, NIMS/ICS integration, and building practical, sustainable preparedness programs. Jason recently relocated to Iowa City, where his wife Christian teaches at the University of Iowa.

Jennifer Helgeson, PhD, is an economist specializing in environmental and development economics, decision science, and resilience to stressors. She is affiliated with the Department of Economics at East Carolina University and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies from Brandeis University, an M.Sc. in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Environment and Development Economics from the London School of Economics. A Fulbright Scholar in Norway, she held the Grantham Institute Research Scholarship and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, with more recent international research at the OECD in France and CICERO in Norway.

Sarah M. Bassett is an Associate Clinical Professor in the School of Public Affairs, Co-Director of the Resilient Visions Co-Lab, and Director of Policy and Impact at the Center for Heat Preparedness at Arizona State University. She is also co-founder of Peoples Culture, a New York City collective. An environmental planner, she examines why people take up, or resist, the risks they face, particularly extreme weather. She has spent two decades on planning, policy, and infrastructure work across three continents, building coalitions and institutions where the people most exposed to a risk help design the solutions, and staying with that work through implementation. Her heat work ranges from neighborhood rubrics and community plans to state preparedness planning and federal legislation and trainings, and includes support for the congressional appropriation that established the Center for Heat Preparedness. She serves on the national board of the American Planning Association's Technology Division and is an active member of its Hazard Mitigation Disaster Recovery Division. 
 

A NEW INFERNO is a vérité short documentary set during Phoenix’s historically hottest month, July, when record-breaking heat turns deadly, especially for the unhoused. In 2024, 608 people in Maricopa County died from heat-related illness, representing a staggering tenfold increase over the past decade. The film follows the crew at Arizona’s busiest firehouse as they race to save heatstroke victims using a radical new treatment. Against the backdrop of rising global temperatures, urban heat islands, and under-resourced services, Phoenix has become a climate canary. A NEW INFERNO offers a visceral, street-level view of the climate crisis as it unfolds in one of the hottest major cities on Earth.

Nita Blum-Reddick is a documentary filmmaker with more than two decades of experience in film, television, and digital media. Her work centers on the human experience of climate impact and community stories that uplift overlooked voices. Her recent film, A New Inferno, which she co-directed and produced, premiered at SXSW and was released as a New York Times Op-Doc. Nita is also a Clinical Assistant Professor at ASU’s Sidney Poitier Film School, where she teaches production courses and has developed the course Documentary for Social Impact, which connects student filmmakers with local nonprofit organizations. She holds a master's in Documentary Studies from Northern Arizona University.

Jonathan Pickett is an Emmy-nominated producer/director whose documentary work captures real-time stories with intimacy and urgency. His forthcoming film Sing at My Wake is supported by Sundance Institute x Sandbox Films and won the 2024 BendFilm Basecamp pitch. His shorts, including Chicken Stories, have premiered at festivals like Tribeca, Big Sky, and HollyShorts; and been featured by The New Yorker, GQ Magazine, Documentary+, Vimeo Staff Picks, and more.

Charles A. Finch, DO, FACOEP embraces his roles in clinical care, medical education and community service with compassion and commitment to excellence. He currently is a board-certified emergency physician, after completing his residency in emergency medicine at Maricopa Medical Center. He serves as the Medical Director for the Phoenix Fire Department. Long dedicated to educating tomorrow’s clinicians, Dr. Finch is a clinical professor of emergency medicine and chair of the Department of Integrative Medicine at Midwestern University’s Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he has developed curriculum on grief and bereavement and ultrasound. He also teaches at the University of Arizona – Phoenix campus, and A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, along with being a presenter at local and national medical conferences.

Maki Lloyd serves as Deputy Chief of the Phoenix Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services Division, overseeing EMS operations for more than 1,800 providers across 518 square miles and over 210,000 annual responses. With more than 25 years of fire and EMS leadership, he has held command roles in Operations, Special Operations, Training, and large-scale incident management, including hazardous materials, technical rescue, and FEMA Arizona Task Force 1 deployments, serving as a Safety Officer and Task Force Leader.

Sarah M. Bassett is an Associate Clinical Professor in the School of Public Affairs, Co-Director of the Resilient Visions Co-Lab, and Director of Policy and Impact at the Center for Heat Preparedness at Arizona State University. She is also co-founder of Peoples Culture, a New York City collective. An environmental planner, she examines why people take up, or resist, the risks they face, particularly extreme weather. She has spent two decades on planning, policy, and infrastructure work across three continents, building coalitions and institutions where the people most exposed to a risk help design the solutions, and staying with that work through implementation. Her heat work ranges from neighborhood rubrics and community plans to state preparedness planning and federal legislation and trainings, and includes support for the congressional appropriation that established the Center for Heat Preparedness. She serves on the national board of the American Planning Association's Technology Division and is an active member of its Hazard Mitigation Disaster Recovery Division. 

Policy intervention across a number of intersectional domains, like energy, housing, transportation, health and infrastructure, is critical to ensuring wellbeing in the face of growing extreme heat. The 2026 midterms will define the realms of possibility for heat policy for the next two years. A number of issues are driving this election cycle, like affordability, such as rising energy prices, and infrastructure buildout, such as data center expansion. How can researchers and practitioners best meet this moment to make the case for heat resilience solutions that protect health and ensure thriving communities? Hear from perspectives at the federal, state, and local levels about the opportunities for heat policy and practice change to improve health outcomes.

Dana Marie Kennedy is the State Director for AARP Arizona, representing more than 900,000 members statewide. With more than 30 years of experience in advocacy, aging, caregiving, and public policy, she leads AARP Arizona's efforts on issues including healthcare affordability, retirement security, support for family caregivers, consumer protection, and helping people age in place.

Kennedy holds degrees and certificates in Social Work, Gerontology, and Human Service Management from California State University, Long Beach and Boston University. She was named Arizona Social Worker of the Year in 2015, a Phoenix Business Journal Top Woman in Business in 2017, and Arizona Capitol Times Advocate of the Year in 2020 for her work protecting vulnerable adults in long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A graduate of the Women's Campaign School at Yale University, Valley Leadership, and the Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy, Kennedy currently serves on Arizona's Nursing Care Institution Administrators and Assisted Living Facility Managers Board by appointment of Governor Katie Hobbs. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, running, and competing in endurance events with her husband and rescue dog, Kona.

Carianne Lee is the Director of Climate Policy and Appropriations at Pioneer Public Affairs, where she develops strategies for her clients to best engage with the federal government and elevate important climate policies necessary to decarbonize our economy and protect communities from the worst impacts of climate change. 

Prior to Pioneer, Carianne was a senior legislative staffer for Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12). In her role, Carianne worked extensively to advance the Congresswoman’s work in climate resilience and environmental justice, with a particular focus on extreme heat, leading several efforts to urge the White House and Congressional leadership to better develop heat emergency preparedness.

Carianne is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Johns Hopkins University. She is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Burkina Faso, West Africa. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Carianne now lives in Washington, DC.
 

Grace Wickerson is the Senior Manager, Climate and Health on the Climate and Environment team at the Federation of American Scientists. Grace leads programmatic work to showcase how a changing climate impacts health outcomes and public health and healthcare systems, through emerging threats like extreme heat and wildfire smoke. Grace is committed to identifying policy solutions that secure access to a clean environment, while bringing down costs, bolstering the economy, and improving Americans’ quality of life. Grace is nationally recognized for their extreme heat work by Grist 50 2025.

Grace holds a Masters of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University and a BS in Materials Science and Nanoengineering from Rice University.
 

Nearly every discipline across the government, academia, private and non-profit sectors is discussing heat and its effects on health, but how are we defining and measuring the impacts and are we all measuring the same way? Join national experts who have been leading the effort to develop occupational health standards for working in extreme heat and to standardize how we classify heat-related deaths and disasters. This session aims to provide a thought- provoking conversation on how we can align nationally to understand the true burden of heat on our workforce, our property and our lives.

Dr. Jeff Johnston serves as the Chief Medical Examiner for the Maricopa County Arizona Office of the Medical Examiner; a position he has held since 2013. The Office of the Medical Examiner provides all statutory medicolegal death investigations for the 4th-most populous county in the United States. Dr. Johnston trained in Anatomic Pathology at the University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville and has subspecialty training in Forensic Pathology from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office. He has been performing Medical Examiner work for the public since 2002. OME conducts approximately 800 potential heat-related death investigations annually.

Vibhu Krishna M.D., M.P.H., is a PGY-4 at UCSF in the Division of Occupational, Environmental, & Climate Medicine with additional training in Emergency Medicine (NewYork Presbyterian Columbia-Cornell) and event medicine. Dr. Krishna has a background in public health consulting, including crisis preparedness and response, and has treated heat illness in a variety of settings: urban, rural / agricultural, and mass gatherings. She is particularly passionate about data-driven solutions towards mitigating the health consequences of extreme heat. She completed medical school at Columbia University (NY) and her master's in public health at UC Berkeley (CA). 

Nicholas Shufro, Principal, Resilient Lengths, LLC who previously served as a FEMA Senior Executive and lead on addressing FEMA’s response to extreme heat. He will speak about FEMA’s response to extreme heat and what it would take to qualify it as a disaster.

Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine is the Medical Director of the Health Observatory at Arizona State University, where she leads applied healthcare and population health research focused on epidemiology, public health preparedness, provider wellbeing, and heat-related health outcomes.

Her work supports the Health Observatory’s mission to transform health data into actionable knowledge and evidence-based solutions for Arizona’s health challenges.

As an infectious disease physician and medical epidemiologist, Dr. Sunenshine earned her MD from Indiana University School of Medicine and completed residency and fellowship at Oregon Health & Science University. She joined the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS), completed the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service fellowship, and continued as a CDC assignee to the Arizona Department of Health Services as Deputy State Epidemiologist. She transferred to the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH), serving as Medical Director/Chief Medical Officer for 16 years,  retiring as Captain from the USPHS in 2024.

During her tenure at MCDPH—the third-largest US local public health jurisdiction—she guided the H1N1 and COVID-19 pandemics as Incident Commander, subject matter expert and media spokesperson. With more than 65 epidemiology publications, Dr. Sunenshine brings over two decades of leadership across federal, state and local public health to ASU’s Health Observatory.

Extreme heat is a moving target, and protecting health in a changing climate requires us to continually evolve how we prepare, respond, and reduce risk. Progress means doing well what we know works—but it also means looking beyond today’s solutions, anticipating emerging challenges, and engaging new partners in shaping what comes next. The future of heat preparedness must reach across sectors and reflect the places where people live, work, and play, while meaningfully engaging those who experience the greatest impacts. This panel will look at recent successes, what has worked and why, but also explore what new challenges are emerging or around the corner? And how we move from individual solutions toward sustained, collective action: expanding who participates, creating space for innovation and new ways of thinking, and building the capacity to adapt as risks and opportunities change? How can we celebrate and build on what is working while recognizing what remains to be done? And how can we ensure that the next generation of approaches to heat and health is not only effective, but shaped, shared, and owned by everyone?

Dr. Eugene Livar is Arizona's first Chief Heat Officer and Assistant Director of Public Health Resiliency, Environment, and Policy, a role in which he implements Governor Hobbs' Extreme Heat Preparedness Plan. His current responsibilities also include oversight of Arizona's public health resilience, climate and heat adaptation, food safety, tobacco compliance, and border health efforts. He began his public health career at ADHS in 2012 and remains committed to shaping policies and initiatives to safeguard the well-being of Arizona's residents.

Merydth Walter joined the Red Cross mission in 2022 and serves as the Regional Disaster Officer. In her role, she leads a highly dedicated and skilled team of staff and volunteers in the delivery of Disaster Cycle Services (DCS) across Arizona and New Mexico. Walter manages preparedness, response and recovery programs related to natural and man-made disasters, including wildfire, flood, house fires, and mass-casualty incidents.

Walter has a 20-year background in emergency management. A wildland firefighter for 17 years, she is familiar with working with the Red Cross as a partner agency during her years spent managing fire preparedness, suppression and recovery operations for government land management agencies. She has extensive operational and incident-management-team experience locally and overseas, serving in Australia for many years in Section Chief and Incident Commander positions before moving to Arizona.

Walter holds a Master of Science in Leadership with an emphasis on Emergency Management and Homeland Security from Grand Canyon University, as well as a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Ballarat.

Jennifer Vanos is an associate professor in the School of Sustainability and the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University. Her research examines connections between extreme heat and human health in urban areas, with a strong focus on heat adaptation and the unique heat risks and challenges faced by vulnerable groups, including children, athletes, and outdoor workers. As a human biometeorologist, Dr. Vanos merges atmospheric science, thermal physiology, public health, and sustainability to support human health across various scales, from hyperlocal, human-centric studies to large-scale applications of climate models.

At ASU, Dr. Vanos is Director of the Human Biometeorology Lab, which focuses on strengthening society’s ability to manage, mitigate, and adapt to extreme heat and air pollution in the face of a changing climate. She also runs the HeatReady Schools program at ASU, is PI of the NSF-funded Global Center on Heat Adaptation design grant, and is an active member of the Urban Climate Research Center.  Beyond ASU, Dr. Vanos is a scientific advisor for the Korey Stringer Institute and the National Program for Play Area Safety, Outgoing Chair of the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Environment & Health, and is co-author on new WHO Heat & Health guidance. Dr. Vanos previously worked at UC San Diego, Texas Tech, and Health Canada, and holds a PhD and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Guelph in Canada.

Reverend Katie Sexton is Executive Director of the Arizona Faith Network, a statewide interfaith organization uniting diverse faith communities for the common good. Since 2019, she has expanded AFN’s work in interfaith collaboration, civic engagement, and community resilience. An ordained minister and trained community organizer, Dr. Sexton is dedicated to building relationships across differences. She holds a Doctor of Ministry and graduate degrees in nonprofit management and Christian studies. Dr. Sexton also serves on various boards and advisory councils, including Justa Center and Bread for the World, supporting civic and faith-based initiatives throughout Arizona.
 

Timothy Lant, PhD, directs a research portfolio of federal, state, and local projects at the intersection of mathematical epidemiology, health equity, disaster science, the environment, infrastructure, and climate. He was the lead scientist for the Arizona COVID-19 Epi-Modeling Task Force, served as the Director of the Division of Analytic Decision Support within the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dr. Lant led a team of scientists and subject matter experts to predict the medical and public health consequences from infectious diseases – including the 2013 H7N9 Influenza outbreak in China, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, and the 2016 international Zika outbreak – and terrorist attacks with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons.
 

Maren Mahoney is an experienced attorney passionate about building an equitable, resilient future for all Arizonans. Trained in systems-level analysis, her expertise is in energy regulation, law, and policy development, analysis, and advocacy. Prior to joining the Hobbs Administration, she advocated for state-level energy efficiency and decarbonization policies around the country, served as a Policy Advisor at the Arizona Corporation Commission, and managed an energy policy think tank at Arizona State University. She holds a J.D. from New York Law School, where she was a John Marshall Harlan Scholar and earned a Certificate for Public Service. Maren earned her M.A. in Sustainability from ASU, where she is a Senior Sustainability Scholar. Maren lives in Phoenix with her husband, two children, and their dog, Mr. Bunny.