My name is Hannah Eisler Burnett, and I am a writer, editor, educator, and qualitative researcher. I am currently the Jamaica Bay Coastal Resilience Specialist for New York Sea Grant and a Visiting Scholar at Brooklyn College and NYU Tandon School of Engineering. In these roles, I manage a portfolio of projects that center community concerns in work towards urban flood resilience.

Prior to my position with New York Sea Grant, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in the Department of Technology, Culture, and Society. I received my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in March 2023. My dissertation examined how large-scale environmental change affects the way people think about property, race, and place in Louisiana’s Mississippi River delta. This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, among others.

I am also a contributing writer and editor at the Center for Humans and Nature, where I was previously Communications & Editorial Associate. I maintain an art practice as well, and have collaborated on research and art projects related to themes of water, toxicity, global trade, and capital.