Jessica Whitehead

Dr. Jessica Whitehead is the Joan P. Brock Endowed Executive Director of the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (ICAR) at Old Dominion University. ICAR's mission is to advance the practice of coastal resilience and adaptation by engaging with communities, organizations, and businesses to develop and deploy solutions based on integrated, innovative, and applied research. ICAR catalyzes the action needed to build vibrant communities, strong economies, and healthy ecosystems across the Commonwealth of Virginia despite natural hazards and climate change. As recognition of her career in using climate information for policy relevant decision-making, Dr. Whitehead is serving the U.S. Global Change Research Program as the non-federal chapter lead author for the Northeast Chapter of the forthcoming Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment. Within the Commonwealth, she is a member of the Virginia Coastal Resilience Technical Advisory Committee. She also serves on the American Meteorological Society's Board on Outreach and Informal Education. Previously, Dr. Whitehead was the first Chief Resilience Officer with the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University, and the first coastal climate extension specialist with the NC Sea Grant and the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium and the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA) Program. She co-chaired the Science and Technical Advisory Committee of the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership until 2020, and was a member of the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate and the Sustained National Climate Assessment Federal Advisory Committee. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in geography and Master of Science in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor of Science in physics with a concentration in meteorology from the College of Charleston.