WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 6, 2025 – Today, the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center announced the appointment of Jane Gilbert as its chief heat ambassador.

Building on her decades of climate experience and her role as the world’s first chief heat officer for Miami-Dade County in Florida, Gilbert will drive efforts to strengthen the capacity of cities and communities across the United States to prepare for and respond to the impacts of extreme heat. 

Gilbert serves as a lead advisor for the Atlantic Council’s new Heat Resilience Exchange, a network launched in September to provide technical assistance to ten US communities focused on addressing extreme heat using a cohort-based approach. 

Funded by a grant from The Tepper Foundation, the Heat Resilience Exchange builds on the work of the former NOAA-funded National Integrated Heat Health Information Center (NIHHIS) Center for Heat Resilience Communities (CHRC), which recruited the cohort members and stood up the community of practice. CHRC was created by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, and the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, and ended in May 2025. 

The CHRC leadership team—Dr. Ladd Keith, Dr. Sara Meerow, and Dr. V. Kelly Turner—will support the new Heat Resilience Exchange as senior advisors. The Federation of American Scientists will also provide policy advisory support to the group.

Additionally, Gilbert will support ongoing work to build heat resilience and advance innovative solutions in the United States. She will also expand the Climate Resilience Center’s work with municipalities to identify their heat planning priorities, provide technical support, and convene this community of practice to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration around safeguarding their cities from rising temperatures.  

Gilbert’s appointment reflects the Climate Resilience Center’s deep commitment to advancing evidence-based, inclusive approaches to climate resilience in urban environments. 

“We are thrilled to appoint Jane Gilbert as our chief heat ambassador,” said Jorge Gastelumendi, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center. “Her appointment marks an important step forward in our commitment to building resilient, climate-ready cities, especially across the United States.”

About Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center

The Climate Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council builds human-capacity and community resilience in the face of climate change. By 2030, the Center aims to reach one billion people with scalable solutions that protect lives, livelihoods and opportunity in climate-vulnerable regions through its work across three priority areas: extreme heat resilience, adaptation policy and finance, and climate gaming and technologies.