Kayly Ober
“We’re in the midst of a climate crisis—and building resilience is more important than ever. However, it’s a privilege to be able to both think through it and to build it.”
Kayly Ober joins the RITA Summit as an independent researcher and practitioner with a 15-year background working on climate and migration issues. In her professional life, she is a senior program officer for the climate, environment and conflict program at USIP. In this role, she leads research and analysis on climate change, migration and displacement as well as transboundary water and conflict issues.
Prior to USIP, she was the senior advocate and program manager of the climate displacement program at Refugees International. She also served as a member of the Task Force on Displacement established under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. In addition, she has previously worked for Asian Development Bank, the Overseas Development Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the World Bank, where she authored the flagship report “Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration.”
Ober holds a master’s in environment and development from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s in international studies from American University. She is currently completing her doctorate in geography at the University of Bonn, where her dissertation analyzes policymaking and governance structures around the climate change-adaptation-migration nexus.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayly-ober?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F