Photo of Chin-Wei Chen smiling with tress in the background

Chin-Wei Chen

he/him

Graduate Student | Adaptation and Mitigation, Health, Impacts and Extremes, Outreach and Communication, Policy | Urban Design and Planning

  • Grabuard Fellow

Website

I am a Fulbright Scholar and PCC Graubard Fellow, pursuing my Ph.D. in Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, specializing in climate resilience, sustainable finance, and infrastructure planning. My research focuses on translating climate science into real-world decisions, turning complex data into policies and investments that make cities safer, more equitable, financeable, and better prepared for a changing climate. With global experience in the U.S., U.K., and Asia, I bring a comparative perspective to how cities respond to climate challenges. As a professionally trained urban planner and CFA ESG-certified researcher, I bridge climate data, housing policy, and infrastructure finance. My dissertation examines how flood-risk disclosure and community-level mitigation shape housing-market dynamics and stakeholder behavior in New York City, connecting natural science, social response, and policy implementation.

At UW Transportation Services, I help advance the university’s clean-energy transition by managing grants and electrifying the campus through solar and EV charger installations. I also served as a Science Policy Analyst at the Clean Energy Institute, developing strategies to scale climate-smart investments and resilience planning. Before returning to academia, I worked as a Project Manager at SGS, where I led sustainability and risk management projects for government and private clients. I helped integrate climate risk into budget and infrastructure planning, conduct GHG emission inventory and audit, design business continuity strategies, and align projects with ESG and green finance standards; experiences that strengthened my ability to connect technical insight with practical solutions.

Across all my work, I care deeply about power dynamics, reflexivity, and amplifying underrepresented voices in climate and planning processes. I am passionate about connecting people, policy, and science to make climate adaptation actionable, listening before acting, translating research into implementation, and ensuring that the path to sustainability is both inclusive and just.

I hold a master’s degree in urban design and international planning from the University of Manchester (U.K.) and a bachelor’s degree in Real Estate and Built Environment from National Taipei University (Taiwan).