Our Team
Dana R. Fisher
Research Partner
Dana Fisher is a Professor in the School of International Service and Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity at American University whose scholarship has shaped how we understand climate action and civic engagement. Her research focuses on citizen engagement and climate politics, and she is the lead researcher on the Talking Climate Collaborative's landscape assessment of climate communicators across the U.S. and Canada.
Dana R. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity (CECE), a Professor in the School of International Service at American University, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. She has published seven books and more than 80 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. Her most recent book, Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action was published by Columbia University Press in 2024. In 2024, she delivered a TED talk about being an apocalyptic optimist and recently launched the Apocalyptic Optimist Podcast with Pique Action. She has presented her work to the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, federal agencies, foundations, presidential campaigns, and other political organizations. She served as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Review (IPCC AR6) writing about citizen engagement and civic activism.
Her media appearances include ABC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS Newshour, and various programs on NPR, BBC, and CBC. Her words have appeared in the popular media, including in the Guardian, the Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Politico, the Nation, Rolling Stone, the Hill, Scientific American, and the American Prospect. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an AB from Princeton University.
For more information, go to www.danarfisher.com