Julia Nesheiwat
Chief Resilience Officer, State of Florida
Dr. Julia Nesheiwat was appointed as Florida’s first Chief Resilience Officer by Governor DeSantis. She is responsible for preparing the state for the environmental, physical, and economic impacts of climate change. Dr. Nesheiwat has over 20 years of national security, energy and environmental experience focused on water and natural resources as a senior executive in federal cabinet-level agencies, academia, and as a U.S. combat veteran. She has served in a variety of positions, including former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State building the first Energy Resources Bureau, working closely with the Oceans, Environment and Science Bureau and serving as Chief of Staff to Special Envoys and the Under Secretary for Economic, Energy, Environment affairs. Dr. Nesheiwat’s PhD dissertation from Tokyo Tech, focused on post-disaster reconstruction of coastal towns and urban resiliency. Dr. Nesheiwat also served on the Global Advisory Council for sustainability and clean energy at the World Economic Forum (WEF), an International Research Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and is a well-known advocate on climate, urban planning, energy-water nexus, and critical infrastructure protection (CI), initiatives. She previously served as a visiting professor at the Naval Post Graduate School on Energy & Environmental Security and Lecturer at University of California San Diego & Stanford University. Dr. Nesheiwat is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer with combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Dr. Nesheiwat received her PhD in Science and Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University, and her Bachelors of Arts from Stetson University.