LAURA TAM

Laura Tam is the Sustainable Development Policy Director at SPUR, a Bay Area think-tank and one of the leading urban policy groups in the United States. She is a thought-leader on urban sustainability and climate resilience, and has led SPUR’s work on water, energy, and climate change since 2007. She has authored or co-authored numerous reports and policy studies including Fossil-Free Bay Area, Future-Proof Water, Climate Change Hits Home, and the book, Resilient Coastal City Regions. Her work has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, KQED and other media outlets. She is a frequent speaker and presenter, and has guest-lectured at all of the Bay Area’s major universities including Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Laura currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, and the Executive Board of the Bay Area Resilient by Design Challenge. She has served on numerous other nonprofit boards and advisory bodies to government over the last ten years, including Friends of the Urban Forest, the Resilient City Steering Committees (in both Oakland and San Francisco), the Green Infrastructure Foundation, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and others.

Prior to working at SPUR, Laura worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Office of the Inspector General, where she designed and conducted environmental program evaluations of national significance. She has a Master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a BA in geography from Dartmouth College.