Dr. Cassie Rauser is an advocate, researcher and strategic innovator focused on climate and sustainability solutions for over 25 years, both domestically and abroad. She is the founder and principal of MorphoStrategies, a climate and sustainability strategy consulting service committed to collaborative and community-inspired approaches to accelerate our response to the climate crisis and implement solutions centered in equity and justice. She currently serves as the LA Climate Fund Advisor for CIV:LAB, a participatory grantmaking and capacity-building organization investing in place-based community-defined climate solutions. For nearly a decade, she led UCLA’s Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, where she built a novel university program that harnessed expertise from across disciplines, created opportunities for partnerships across sectors, and collaboratively worked to transform LA County into the most sustainable mega-city by 2050. She was part of the team that developed the first LA County sustainability plan, was a convening lead author on LADWP’s LA100 equity strategies for delivering carbon-free energy in LA by 2035, and serves on the City of L.A.’s biodiversity expert council. She received her B.S. in biology from Arizona State University and her Ph.D. in ecology & evolutionary biology from the University of California, Irvine.
