As Director of Adaptation and Coastal Resilience at the National Wildlife Federation, Dr. Pathak has dedicated her career to ensuring that science serves communities, not the other way around. This approach is evident in her work with partners in Galveston, Texas. Facing over two feet of sea level rise already—and projections of up to 200 days of high-tide flooding annually by 2050—the climate crisis has already arrived on Galveston’s doorstep. “It’s a place for both urgent need and also a place for real opportunity,” she says, pointing to the island’s wetlands, dunes, and oyster reefs as natural infrastructure that, if invested in, “can provide powerful defenses while supporting wildlife and the local economy.”

Her team’s Climate Resilient Galveston report was shaped not only at a desk or in a conference room, but in conversations with communities on the ground. As detailed in the companion Texas Living Waters blog, the process began with a 2023 roundtable, reviewed over a dozen local plans, and culminated in a 2024 session to refine next steps—ensuring the final product reflected Galveston residents’ own vision. That collaborative spirit gave rise to Convene the Green, a locally led initiative now spearheaded by Vision Galveston.