David Southgate

David C. Southgate, MS, MPA, is a Ralph Johnson Bunche Distinguished Graduate Fellow at Rutgers University, where he is presently an Ph.D. student in Public Affairs/Community Development. He is interested in social and institutional processes and their influence on land-use outcomes. David has been a technical assistance provider to the US EPA’s Brownfields program with CCLR since 2016. Prior to CCLR, he was a program administrator for environmental justice and land revitalization initiatives for a Puerto Rico-based regional consortium. The projects resulted in transformation of land-use regulations, enhanced community capacity and advocacy, and integration as priority ECN 24 in the Economic and Disaster Recovery Plan for Puerto Rico, which was submitted to the US Congress to support federal recovery funding. On the ground in Puerto Rico, David serves as liaison between Anthropocene Alliance and a community-based organization in the coastal community of Ponce, Puerto Rico. There he is developing institutional partnerships to channel large-scale funding to respond to community-identified climate adaptation priorities.