ECI Senior Researcher Erika Berenguer has been awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship.
Dr Berenguer is one of 16 climate leaders selected by the Foundation for the first cohort of Big Bets Climate Fellows. In its inaugural year, leaders with projects based in Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, and Puerto Rico have been “selected to advance solutions intended to reverse the climate crisis and accelerate opportunity across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), with a focus on the Amazon Basin.”
The Big Bets Climate Fellowship, which was established as part of The Rockefeller Foundation’s billion-dollar climate strategy, will provide fellows with programming, networking, and professional development opportunities as they work to implement and scale their bold climate solutions.
Dr Berenguer said:
I am delighted to have been awarded this fellowship because of my project that aims to fireproof the Amazon. Fires are currently the greatest existential threat to the world's largest rainforest and this fellowship can kick start some on-the-ground solution-driven research.”
Dr Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation, said:
The 16 leaders in the extraordinary inaugural class of Climate Fellows have the big bet mindset: the belief that large-scale change is possible and the commitment to making that change happen.
Through this fellowship, we hope to help these leaders unlock the resources and forge the connections they need to turn their big, bold ideas into real impact at scale. I can’t wait to see how their big bets evolve.”
Read the announcement in full.