Resilient Futures Podcast
Episodes
The Gospel of Grass: Patrick Keyser Speaks to the Resilience of Native Grasslands
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Patrick Keyser knows the grass may not always be greener--but there's still a lot to learn from it.Since long before European colonization, grass...
Making Sense of SETS: Our Host Alysha on Complex Infrastructure Systems
02 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This month, Alysha Helmrich is our host and guest! This short episode discusses social-ecological-technological systems and sensemaking. She explores ...
ASCE’s Resilient Future: the World’s Oldest Engineering Society Brings New Voices to the Table
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the face of immense global and national change, the world’s oldest engineering society is staying flexible. The American Society for Civil Engine...
Insuring The Future: The Role of Insurance in Disaster Risk Reduction
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Disasters are affecting more people and property than ever before. Since 1980, the U.S. has experienced 400+ weather-related "billion dollar"...
Street Smarts and Survival Smarts: How NYC's Urban Preppers are Planning for the Future
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What did you do during the COVID-19 social distancing era? Some of us learned to make sourdough, some of us perfected a viral whipped coffee, plenty o...
Going With the Flow: Adapting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for the Long Haul
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
California relies on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a hub for water, biodiversity, agriculture, recreation, and more. How can we make sure that m...
Behind the City Scenes: Why You Should Get to Know Your Local Infrastructure
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever asked your garbage truck where it's going?Sybil Derrible is a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago,...
A More Resilient Georgia: Introducing the Statewide Resilience Assessment!
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This month, we’re proud to introduce an in-house effort at the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems: the Georgia Statewide Resilience Asse...
American Disasters: How Classical Calamities Inform Emergency Response Today
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cynthia Kierner, historian, self-declared "non-21st century person," and Mets fan, is deeply interested in the role of disturbances across A...
Why Do We Need Parks? Welcoming Back Joeri Morpurgo
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We know that green spaces are good for you. They provide benefits to air quality, biodiversity, and even your mental health... but why?Returning guest...
The Nation's Heartbeat: Engineering, History, and the Mississippi River
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Mississippi River Basin covers over a million square miles across the southeast and midwest US. Despite growing up far away in the northeast US, B...
Sustainable Neighborhoods: How Athens Land Trust Combines Conservation and Community
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emmanuel Stone was raised to love good food: his mother, a restaurant owner, inspired him to teach culinary arts, learn about agriculture, and emphasi...
It's All Connected: A Framework for Intertwined Infrastructure Systems
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This month's guest is someone close to home for our team- meet Alysha's PhD student, Negin Shamsi! Negin gives an overview of her first firs...
Building Biodiverse Urban Gardens
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How big does an urban garden need to be to support pollinators and other important insects? What kinds of plants lead to the most biodiverse space? Ho...
Greening the cul-de-sac: How can we encourage nature-positive residential developments?
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Big, leafy shade trees, burbling creeks, and access to recreation in beautiful natural areas: most people intuitively know that these kinds of natural...
The Resilient Future of Solar Power
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lauren McPhillips didn't always dream of being a professor, but she knew she loved solving problems.After earning three degrees in Earth systems ...
Water in the USA: Affordable, Accessible, Clean Water for All?
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Water is a natural resource all of us rely on, but there's a lot of thought and work that goes into being able to turn on your tap. How do we mak...
UGA's Resilient Future: Creating Space for Nature-based Solutions
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Director of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the...
Urban Morphology: Buildings, Streets, and the People In Between
17 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month, our host Alysha Helmrich and her guest Lynn Abdouni are coming to you live from halfway across the world.This pair of UGA engineering prof...
Implementing Change: Progress on Climate Resilience in Atlanta, Georgia
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month, we're welcoming practitioners from Atlanta Regional Commission: Katherine Zitsch, Deputy COO, and Jon Philipsborn, Climate and Resili...
Expect the Unexpected: Resilience and Life Advice from the Late Bronze Age
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month, anthropologist and historian Dr. Eric Cline and USACE research social scientist Dr. Ben Trump come together with hosts Alysha and Todd to ...
Special Guest: Rachel Jacobson on Climate Resiliency in the Army and Beyond
15 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month features a special guest. The Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, visited...
Equitable Engineering: Nature-based Solutions in the Global South
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alysha and Todd speak with Marta Berbés-Blázquez and Stephanie Cruz Maysonet from the University of Waterloo about the implementation of Nature-base...
An Interconnected World: Why Biodiversity Matters in Engineering
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alysha and Todd are joined by Kyle McKay (USACE Research Civil Engineer) and Charles van Rees (Conservation Scientist at UGA) to discuss BIODIVERSITY-...
Promoting Resilience: Interdisciplinary Expertise and Collaboration
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On interdisciplinary collaboration, promoting resilience projects and disaster management strategies with Executive Director of ASCE, Tom SmithAlysha ...
Turning a new leaf: an introduction to the Resilient Futures Podcast
01 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Join co-hosts Dr. Alysha Helmrich and Dr. Todd Bridges as they introduce themselves and the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, reintroduc...
The Power of Identity: Bringing Our Whole Selves to Research
01 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Academic research, no matter how scientific, can be deeply personal. Pursuing a PhD in a field like urban resilience demands an unwavering dedication ...
Green Infrastructure: Opportunities, Challenges, and the CUGIC
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Urban green infrastructure has the ability to make cities more sustainable. However, the exact implementation of green infrastructure and the choices ...
Future of Urban Hydrology
01 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this month's episode of the Future Cities Podcast, Dr. Alysha Helmrich hosts Dr. Virginia Smith, who explores the future of urban hydrology. S...
Can I Recycle This?
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On this month's episode of the Future Cities podcast, Alysha Helmrich interviews her colleague, Katherine (Kat) Shayne. Kat Shayne is the CEO of ...
Expanding Ecological Connectivity toward Resilient Socio-ecological Landscapes
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Catherine de Rivera leads a conversation with Carole Hardy and Eric Butler. They dive into the social, ecological, and technological aspects of ...
Dynamic Criticality for Infrastructure Prioritization
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dynamic Criticality is the idea that organizations must constantly reform their priorities in the face of volatile environments to maintain an adaptiv...
Centralization and Decentralization for Resilient Infrastructure
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pervasive across infrastructure literature and discourse are the concepts of centralized, decentralized, and distributed systems, and there appears to...
Environmental Justice and Air Quality
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Christina H. Fuller shares her work on environmental health and justice, particularly examining how air quality varies down to a block-level acros...
Developing and Deploying Disruptive Ideas
01 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Mikhail Chester hosts Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, whose work engages a multitude of disciplines (from engineers to urban planners to economists) to adv...
Carbon Banking within Urban Spaces
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The built environment has significantly contributed to climate change, and it is becoming increasingly clear that net-zero carbon emissions is not eno...
Justice in Sustainability Pathways
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Distributive, procedural, recognitional justice are vital for nature-based solutions, but these dimensions of justice have multiple and conflicting me...
Democratizing Visualization for Climate Justice
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Whose voice counts? Whose visualization informs the design of cities? And how do we collaborate in nurturing resilient equitable futures? Join a conve...
Local Labs of Urban Informality (English)
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month's episode was initially published in Spanish -- the co-hosts' native language. Today, we are publishing a dubbed English version....
Local Labs of Urban Informality (Spanish)
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month's episode is initially being published in Spanish -- the co-hosts' native language. On September 15th, we will be publishing a du...
Heat Risk
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month's episode, Heat Risk, explores the risk of heat exposure in Phoenix, AZ but has relevance across the globe with the current heat waves...
Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty & Green Infrastructure
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this month's episode, Dr. Alysha Helmrich sits down with Marissa Webber, a PhD Candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss her recent ...
Every Tree Tells a Story - Cadder Primary School & The Lost Woods
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month’s podcast is brought to you by the children of Cadder Primary School in Glasgow and the Lost Woods Project to tell you all about their wo...
Environmental Justice and Green Infrastructure
01 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Green infrastructure features are often celebrated as multifunctional solutions in cities, with an array of benefits that they could provide. However,...
Infrastructure for Visible Cities
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Sybil Derrible (@SybilDerrible) is the creator of the Actionable Science for Urban Sustainability (AScUS) society, and former chair of the Interna...
What Makes Infrastructure Sustainable?
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Discussions about infrastructure are often centered on the opinions and prevailing ideas within engineering, but other disciplines have valuable insig...
Climate Gentrification and Miami
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this month's episode, we talk with Nkosi Muse (@weatherkos), a scientific advisor on climate change adaptation to the city of Miami and Ph. D....
The Hidden Environmental Histories of the River Clyde
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This week we bring you another podcast from the city of Glasgow focusing on the Hidden Environmental Histories of the River Clyde. At the height of th...
Climate Gentrification in Coastal Cities
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, a diverse team of graduate students discuss their research on climate gentrification in the Eastern coast of the United States and th...
Every Tree Tells a Story
01 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Clair Cooper, PhD Candidate at Durham University, is joined by Gillian Dick, Strategic Planning Manager with Glasgow City Council, and Donagh Horgan f...
Defining Resilience (Rebroadcast)
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We hear the term used all over the place: in music, on TV, in books– but what IS resilience? In this episode, we discuss resilience from the Social-...
Nature-Based Solutions and You
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Green infrastructure (GI) and nature-based solutions (NBS) are relatively new concepts in expert circles, at least by those terms. In this episode, Dr...
Green Infrastructure: Diversity in Perspectives and Applications
01 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Description: Alysha Helmrich and Maike Hamann host a discussion on the various perspectives surrounding green infrastructure (GI) with Vinicius Taguch...
Cities of Light
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Marissa Matsler and Robert Lloyd explore another dimension of the series title, as they chat with the authors and editors of “Cities of Light” - a...
COVID Implications for Work and Mobility
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended so many aspects of our lives – from the ways we socialize, the ways and places where we spend our free time, and t...
Scenario Analysis for Resilient Urban Futures
15 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors Marta Berbes, Nancy Grimm, Robert Hobbins, and Timon McPhearson join Robert Lloyd to talk about how scenarios of future city transformations a...
Scenario Production for Resilient Urban Futures
01 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors Elizabeth Cook, David Iwaniec, Lelani Mannetti, and Tischa Muñoz-Erickson join Robert Lloyd to talk about the production of scenarios for fut...
Value-focused Thinking
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When asked what infrastructure are supposed to do, responses of course vary dramatically from the mundane (for example, provide water and power) to th...
Complexity Leadership
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's widely recognized that infrastructure are central to societal goals, that changes to infrastructure and how we use them can have profound im...
Infrastructure as Knowledge Enterprises
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
People often think of infrastructure as merely physical assets, but they are the outcome of cultural preferences and how we generate knowledge. In thi...
Corals Combating Climate Change
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change has contributed to the severity of tropical storms, causing unprecedented coastal erosion and record rates of flooding. Countries aroun...
Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. Lelani Mannetti
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Lelani Mannetti (Twitter @LelaniM) is a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia State University's Urban Studies Institute. Her research focuses...
Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. Marccus Hendricks
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Marccus Hendricks is an Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning in the Schoolof Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at the Universi...
Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. Prentiss Dantzler
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Prentiss Dantzler (Twitter @DocDantzler) is an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University's Urban Studies Institute. His research focuse...
Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd
01 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd (Instagram @marsh4fsu, Twitter @DrShepherd2013) is a distinguished meteorologist, professor, writer, podcaster… and that on...
Coastal Resilience in the Hudson Valley
01 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Hudson River flows from the alpine peaks of New York State’s Adirondack Mountains to the harbor of New York City. Its tidal valley includes dive...
Community Organizing for Wetland Conservation and the Green Commons
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Host Jason Sauer (PhD candidate, ASU) talks with researcher Heidy Correa (Master of Science, Universidad Austral de Chile) about a grassroots communit...
Learning to Live With Water in New Orleans
01 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
New Orleans, Louisiana faces ecological challenges, but also social challenges in learning to adapt to climate change and to adopt new water managemen...
Pedestrian Deaths in America
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pedestrian deaths in the United States have risen by 50% since 2009, with over 6,000 pedestrians dying in 2018 alone. In this month's episode, St...
Building Smart, Affordable Communities
12 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Roughly 1.6 billion people across the world live in inadequate, unsafe, and overcrowded shelter. In this episode, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) inter...
The Many Names of Urban Nature
01 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There are many ways to refer to nature in cities: urban green space, nature-based solutions, green infrastructure… But which name is best? Does it r...
No Such Thing as a Vacant Lot
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Elsa Anderson stops by the show to talk with us about vacant lots and urban biodiversity, or how urban areas can provide spaces for many species o...
Biomimicry and Infrastructure Resilience
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s rapidly evolving climate, and amid unprecedented technological disruptions, engineers and designers seek infrastructure solutions that ar...
Resilience in the Face of COVID-19
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Cities are at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic, but what happens in cities once a pandemic takes hold? What systems are failing? Are cities prepare...
Current Events Minisode: Trees to Help Cities Breathe
21 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and Stephen Elser discuss an article on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being opened up to oil drilling and h...
Trees to Help Cities Breathe
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We all know that trees provide all sorts of benefits to people, right? But different trees provide different benefits and trees will only provide thos...
Current Events Minisode: Urban Ecology
19 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and PhD candidate, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser), discuss the Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, and how it relates to...
Urban Ecology to Improve Our Cities
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we explore the field of urban ecology and the challenges of doing social-ecological research. Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) intervie...
Current Events Minisode: Urban Agriculture
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and Jason Sauer discuss Arizona’s goal of getting rid of their 43 food deserts. They then talk about the local ...
Greening Phoenix Through Urban Agriculture
06 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We talk with two researchers, Dr. Nazli Uludere Aragon and PhD student Michelle Stuhlmacher (@MFStuhlmacher on Twitter) about their recent publication...
Current Events Minisode: Infrastructure and Climate Change
20 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In our first current events minisode, Tessa Martinez and Alysha Helmrich discuss the Australian wildfires and their implications on Sydney’s infrast...
Infrastructure and Climate Change
01 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change is a large source of uncertainty for infrastructure managers. It is easy to feel immobilized by future uncertainty, however, that does ...
Digging Our Own (Climate) Graves: Understanding Barriers to Green Infrastructure Development
02 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Marissa Matsler (@oh_the_urbanity) talks with Dr. David Manuel-Navarrete about the evolutionary forces working against wider adop...
Solid Waste Buildup and Threats to Flood Resilience
01 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We're not the Mob but we here at Future Cities still care a lot about waste management! Co-host Jason Sauer talks with Dr. Erin Rivers (@soilandt...
Air Quality and Microbes in Philadelphia
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This month's guest, Justin Stewart (@thecrobe), studies air quality and atmospheric microbial communities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He tells...
Hurricanes, and Wetlands, and Nutrients – Oh My!
07 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this month's episode we sit down with Matt Smith, a PhD candidate at Florida International University, to talk about Hurricane Dorian and some...
Resilience to Floods and Heat in Hermosillo, Mexico
06 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This month, we sit down with two PhD candidates from Arizona State University, Jason Sauer and Yuliya Dzyuban, to talk about their recent trip to Herm...
SETS Infrastructure
04 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Both infrastructure disasters and infrastructure funding bills are back in the news, soJason Sauer sat down with Dr. Sam Markolf to talk about a paper...
Resilient Hospitals
01 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hospitals are critical to the health of any city, providing essential care to the communities that they serve. Unlike many other buildings, hospitals ...
Adapting Phoenix to Extreme Heat
02 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Extreme heat and how to cope with it are two major areas of interest in cities like Phoenix, Arizona. Recently, Maricopa County (where Phoenix is) par...
Heat and Thermal Comfort
01 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This month, Stephen Elser interviews UREx SRN fellow and ASU School of Sustainability PhD student, Yuliya Dzyuban, about her research involving extrem...
Safe to Fail Adaptation
01 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Dr. Yeowon Kim explains the difference between “fail-safe” and “safe-to-fail” infrastructure and how shifting towards this ne...
Resilience for Undocumented Community Members
03 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The proposed addition to the US census of a question regarding the legal status of census respondents poses a major problem for both vulnerability res...
Resilience in Infrastructure
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, UREx postdoctoral researcher, Sam Markolf, interviews Dr. Dan Eisenberg about resilience from an engineering perspective. When is bei...
Flash Flooding in Baltimore
04 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
UREx post-docs Bernice Rosenzweig and Marissa Matsler report from on-the-ground in Baltimore. Looking to learn more about how the Memorial Day Weekend...
Green Stormwater Management in Three U.S. Cities
01 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Stephen Elser sits down with Drs. Lauren McPhillips and Marissa Matsler to talk about their recent paper published in Frontiers in Bu...
Paradigmas Insostenibles en Nuestras Ciudades
20 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
¿Te has preguntado si la ciudad en la que vives es realmente sustentable?, ¿Que tipo de paradigmas amenazan la resiliencia de nuestras ciudades a co...
Eventos Extremos
01 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
¿Que son los eventos climáticos extremos?, el Dr. Agustín Robles, líder académico de la ciudad de Hermosillo en la Red de Resiliencia Urbana a Ev...
Defining Resilience
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We hear the term used all over the place: in music, on TV, in books– but what IS resilience? In this episode, we discuss resilience from the Social-...
Poems for Resilient and Equitable Cities
06 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Local Phoenix poets including Kimberly Koerth, Jacob Friedman, Rashaad Thomas, and Anna Flores read original poetry about Resilience, Equity, and Dive...