About us

Mission

Our goal is to enhance communities’ abilities to adapt and withstand disasters to be more resilient.

Meet our Team

Staff

Timothy Davidson

Program Coordinator

Graduate Students

Graduate students are master’s and PhD-level students at Tulane who work as a team to explore the barriers historically marginalized communities continue to face when trying to recover from disasters. This has involved an extensive literature review of well over 100 articles as well as empirical research that is currently being conducted based on gaps that were identified in the literature review. This research has informed the program development within CEDR and has already informed other current initiatives. Graduate students are trained on research best practices, including personal knowledge management, citation management software, scholarly writing, and thematic analysis to synthesize and summarize findings. Graduate students also provide additional support and expertise in helping and mentoring the undergraduate student fellows and supporting the organizational fellows where needed.

Melissa Awbrey

Research Assistant

Catherine Nuñez-Dune

Research Assistant

Cameron Leahy

Research Assistant

Lovia Feliscar

Undergrad Supervisor

Zoë Sullivan

Graduate Assistant

Caroline Contillo

Research Assistant

Undergraduate Student Fellows

In an effort to increase the capacity of the organizational fellows associated with the fellowship program, CEDR and Tulane’s Center for Public Service created the student fellowship program. The student fellows are a multidisciplinary team from various departments within Tulane, all committed to the betterment of their community. As part of the fellowship, students are trained in community engagement, best research practices and help community organizations in various ways, including finding scholarly literature to support future grant proposals, searching for possible funding opportunities, and other tasks as needed by the organizations.

Stacey Li

Partnered with Grace at the Greenlight

Daniel Wiesen

Partnered with Ubuntu Village NOLA

Finn Council

Partnered with CSED

Katie Harney

Partnered with the Point-au-Chien Indian Tribe

Corey Warren

Partnered with lowernine.org

Jack Rose

Marketing Intern

CEDR Fellows

Each of the CEDR organizational fellows is completing a project of their choosing to address needs that they’ve identified in their communities, with a focus on the underserved and the historically marginalized. See their bios for details on their project with CEDR and the great work that they are involved in in their normal operations to better our communities. In addition to their projects, each fellow is participating in a training course designed to help organizations build capacity.

Our History

The Walmart Foundation has invested in a group of 4 organizations helping local leaders and community-led organizations in the Gulf Coast prepare their communities for disasters. One of those organizations was CEDR which was founded in the wake of Hurricane Ida to address some of the significant issues that were laid bare by yet another major storm.

Learn about the other projects funded by the Walmart Foundation here including: St. Bernard Project, Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Disaster Management, Nature Conservancy.

 

Thank you to our funder, the Walmart Foundation

Our Logo

There are 6 main elements that inspired our logo design.