Alexandra Bruce

Seminar: Equity in climate change adaptation

Alexa is a first year PhD student working under Prof. Casey Brown at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she is a Dean’s Scholar. Her particular interest lies in understanding how we can work to better account for the human dimension of decision making in our analysis of water resource systems.

Prior to starting her PhD in September 2018, Alexa was a Water Engineer for Arup, a global engineering consultancy based in London. Whilst at Arup, Alexa led the firm’s work on the City Water Resilience Framework – a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. This work engaged five partner cities around the world – Amman, Mexico City, Miami, Cape Town and Hull – to understand stakeholder perspectives on what enables them to deal with shocks and stresses they face in their city.

Alexa also spent 18 months on secondment to the National Infrastructure Commission, an independent body of UK Government that provides long-term strategic oversight of infrastructure planning in the UK. Alexa led the Commission’s work on the Environment and Climate Change, a key cross-cutting theme looking across all economic infrastructure sectors, including water, wastewater and flood risk.

Alexa spent 8 years working with Engineers Without Borders UK at all levels of the organisation, including a three-year tenure on the Board of Trustees. She was the winner of the Society of Public Health Engineers Young Engineers Award 2015, runner-up in the NCE Graduate of the Year Award in 2015, and a Royal Academy of Engineers Engineering Leaders Scholar whilst undertaking her undergraduate degree at University College London.