Wendi Goldsmith

Wendi Goldsmith, PhD is a warm, funny, and accessible, yet authoritative, speaker who makes complex topics accessible to laypeople and decision-makers of all levels. She speaks on subjects related to her unique and compelling project experience, her 25-year career as an award-winning entrepreneur, practical and fundable climate change solutions, and advocacy for women in male-dominated fields such engineering, technology, and entrepreneurship. Sample topics include: upgrading community infrastructure, effectively engaging stakeholders in project design, how natural systems can best integrated with engineering solutions, how climate change affects public investment strategies, and what it means to guide teams, projects, programs, and communities towards resilience in the face of natural disasters and other threats. She has many stories related to large and small projects, comical and harrowing situations, and how humility, resourcefulness, and collaboration can drive success. Dr. Goldsmith is known for building consensus among diverse and often antagonistic stakeholder groups to help advance large public infrastructure projects. A pioneer in natural resource restoration and the application of sustainability principles to planning, development, and restoration, she is widely known as a thought leader in Green Infrastructure. She has led R&D programs for DOD developing methods for evaluating and optimizing renewable energy and efficient/resilient buildings, infrastructure, and site design. She played a lead role on the planning, design, and program management of the $14 billion post-Katrina Hurricane Storm Damage Risk Reduction System, the first regional-scale climate adapted infrastructure system in the US and winner of top national awards from ASCE, ACEC, and others. Dr. Goldsmith has received many awards personally, including the 2016 Joan Hodges Queneau Palladium Medal and the bronze De Fleury Medal. Dr. Goldsmith is highly regarded for her expertise in practical application of climate science in the built environment. As a licensed professional geologist, certified by the American Institute of Professional Geologists, she has expertise in state-of-the-art procedures for assessment, analysis, and restoration design of river corridors and coastal landforms. She coordinated the science, policy, and engineering disciplines involved in structuring climate forecast informed engineering design criteria for the new resilient infrastructure system in Greater New Orleans. She has written and presented extensively on climate change resilience in urban settings, and frameworks for decision-making under risk and uncertainty, including book chapters, peer reviewed articles, reports, formal seminars for multiple public agencies and academic institutions including Harvard GSD, MTA of New York, USACE, and more. She is currently completing her second book under contract to Springer, titled “Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Lessons Learned after Katrina for Regional Coastal Engineering”. She has served as a Federal Appointee on the National Women’s Business Council, as well as multiple Boards for NGOs, business, and academia. She holds degrees from Yale, UMass, Conway School, and Aarhus University.