Kristen Fontana

Bio

Kristen is the ORISE/USGS Climate Science Translation and Communications Fellow for the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. Since her start in 2021, Kristen has helped the SE CASC plan and facilitate the 2022 Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Symposium along with the 2023 Caribbean Conservation Community of Practice. As a communications fellow, she performs various communications tasks, such as creating web posts, newsletters, social media posts, flyers, fact sheets, and even a case study for the Climate Resilience Toolkit (CRT). Kristen has a Master of Climate Change and Society from NC State University where she developed a communication plan capable of promoting widespread climate action support regardless of political ideology. With her undergraduate studies in Natural Resources and minor in Environmental Sciences, Kristen acquired the appropriate knowledge of the environment to understand natural processes and their interactions with anthropogenic activity.  Additionally, her graduate classes in climate change fundamentals, natural resource policy, and communications classes, provided her with a solid background in the evidence/impacts of a changing climate, the policy needed to address such changes, and the ways to relay this information to the public. Kristen is excited to support the SE CASC in their science communications efforts, sharing the important funded scientific research pursued by the center.