Ryan Thomas is a doctoral candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning from Cincinnati, Ohio. Ryan is interested in urban environmental planning with a focus on flood risk and urban informality. His research broadly explores the relationship between risk and urban planning and demonstrates how planning can both produce and manage risk. His dissertation project examines the everyday experience and representation of risk through research on flood management and urban expansion in Dar es Salaam and Moshi, two cities in Tanzania. He has explored the role of scenarios and scenario planning to promote regional adaptation planning and action among local governments in the Boston metro area and along the Lake Ontario shoreline in New York State. Ryan is also interested in the challenges of integrating climate data into land governance decision-making and has contributed to Dr. Shi’s research on fiscal impacts of climate change by working with large, state-wide data sets on this issue. Prior to entering the doctoral program, Ryan evaluated USAID economic development and environmental programs and won an award for the best gender-sensitive evaluation in 2016. He holds a master’s degree in community planning from his hometown University of Cincinnati.
rmt235@cornell.edu