Marissa Alba Naclerio is a PhD student in the University of Miami’s Environmental Science and Policy program at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. She is interested in the social and cultural dimensions of adaptation to climates risks, with a focus on how this manifests through heat risk adaptation across the urbanized Caribbean.
Naclerio is originally from New Haven, Connecticut, and earned a B.S. in Natural Resources and the Environment from the University of Connecticut in 2022. During her undergraduate studies, she participated in a Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at Pennsylvania State University, where she examined carbon flux in the Florida Everglades. She also collaborated on a publication examining blue-green infrastructure installation in Portland, Oregon, to which she contributed an environmental justice analysis. These research experiences, motivated by her family's experience in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María, informed her interest in understanding Caribbean socio-ecological systems. Naclerio earned a Master of Environmental Management from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University in 2025. Her Master's work examined flood risk perceptions and the role of community-supported blue-green infrastructure as adaptive responses to a changing climate in Mérida, Yucatán, México. Interwoven throughout her work has been a dedication to community-based, bilingual participatory research design and the advancement of sociocultural examinations of adaptation.
