Rebecca French, PhD, MS

As the first director of the new Office of Climate Planning, Dr. French advises the Commissioner of DEEP on mitigation, adaptation and resilience plans across all divisions of the agency. Her first charge is to administer the Governor’s Council on Climate Change. Previously, Dr. French served as the Director of Resilience for the CT Department of Housing, and as the Director of Community Engagement for the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) from 2014-2018. Dr. French also spent a year in Congress as a Congressional Science Fellow in the Office of US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), serving as a policy advisor to the Senator in the areas of energy, environment, and agriculture.