About Us
Our Team
Jason Thistlethwaite
Dr. Jason Thistlethwaite is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo, co-lead of the Climate Risk Research Group and Associate Director for Partners for Action (P4A). He is a leading expert on Canadian risk management policy, designing financial risk-transfer systems, and mapping and measuring risk. Thistlethwaite has advised the National Task Force on Flood Insurance and Relocation, National Adaptation Strategy and Flood Risk Roundtable and regularly contributes to public dialogue on effective risk management in the media. His work with clients focuses on finding efficiencies in risk management benefiting organizations including Public Safety Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Department of National Defence, Intact Insurance, the Insurance Bureau of Canada, and several non-profits. His current projects include deploying AI to improve the efficiency and equity of insurance, identifying protection gaps for critical infrastructure, assessing the cost-benefit benefit of climate risk reduction, and using socio-economic vulnerability to prioritize resources for risk management in the communities that need it most.
Daniel Henstra
Dr. Daniel Henstra is a Professor of Political Science and co-lead of the Climate Risk Research Group at the University of Waterloo. He is an expert on the management of complex risks, with more than 20 years of experience in applied research and policy analysis in areas such as emergency management and climate change adaptation. Henstra has conducted contract policy research for private firms, non-profits and federal, provincial and municipal government departments, such as Infrastructure Canada, Global Affairs Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Public Safety Canada. He is a member of the Canadian Climate Institute’s Adaptation Expert Panel and has provided policy advice to governments on climate adaptation, critical infrastructure protection, cyber resilience, disaster financial assistance and flood insurance. Henstra is currently leading a national study on governance arrangements to achieve critical infrastructure (CI) resilience, which combines spatial analysis and comparative case studies of five provinces and CI sectors.
Liton Chakraborty
Dr. Liton Chakraborty is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Resilience and Economic Integration Division at Public Safety Canada. Dr. Chakraborty's research involves population subgroups and communities often disproportionately affected by climate change risks due to repeated physical exposure, limited adaptive and coping capacity, pre-existing socioeconomic vulnerability, social exclusion, marginalization, and displacement. His research assesses socioeconomic vulnerability, environmental inequities, and racial/ethnic disparities in physical exposure to natural hazards and disaster risks. In the context of Canada, Dr. Chakraborty has developed a Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) - a decision support tool devised for Canadian regions to inform equity and socioeconomic variability at the census geography-based community level - highlighting factors representing social construction of climate change risk. His distinguished geospatial analytics skills in risk hotspots analysis, leveraging hazard, vulnerability, and exposure data into risk evaluation framework, help translate complex scientific methods to support communities at the local level through all-inclusive policies, programs, and initiatives for proactive emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction in priority areas. Dr. Chakraborty's research helps identify data-driven Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) and systemic inequity factors in risk management decisions and policy development, emphasizing an equity-centered, intersectional approach.
Dave Guyadeen
Dr. Dave Guyadeen is an Associate Professor in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD) at the University of Guelph. He is an established researcher specializing in the field of evaluation. His research focuses specifically on evaluating the quality of plans (e.g., climate change plans, community official plans, municipal strategic plans), the success of plan implementation, and the outcomes of plans. Dr. Guyadeen has focused extensively on climate changing planning and has reviewed and analyzed over 200 climate change plans across Ontario and Canada. He has completed projects for the Social Sciences and Research Council (Canada) and Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), and has provided consulting services to municipalities on climate change planning.