Hanna Payne is the Climate Resilience Manager at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), where she leads core components of the Climate Resilient Communities Accelerator and advances related resilience initiatives and policy efforts. The Accelerator is a regional capacity-building program that increases cross-sector coordination and investment in climate-vulnerable regions across the United States.

Ms. Payne joined C2ES from the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, where she led policy research on the intersection of land use and climate resilience. Her work centered on equitable, climate-smart policy solutions to support California’s local, regional, and state-level adaptation and resilience efforts, emphasizing interdisciplinary research collaborations and stakeholder engagement. Her portfolio includes projects on adaptation funding systems, market-based land use strategies, and local government climate action. Previously, she was a California Sea Grant Fellow at the California Coastal Commission, where she analyzed housing access and equity in the Coastal Zone. She also trained in environmental conflict resolution (ECR).

Ms. Payne earned an master’s degree in Environmental Communication and a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University, specializing in human-environment systems.