U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Refugee International Operations (RIO) Adjudication Officer Katelin Wright couldn’t possibly have imagined where her interest in climate change would take her.
Just a few years after her Center for Homeland Defense and Security Master’s thesis titled “The Perfect Storm: Climate-Induced Migration to the United States” won the Outstanding Thesis Award, Wright (Master’s Program cohort 1901/1902) has become a leading expert on climate security issues at the Center, working on various initiatives as a kind of second career.
Wright said she has continued to pursue her “passion for exploring the nexus between climate change and migration and the risks, surprises, and unexpected opportunities climate change might have on U.S. security” in several ways. She has given numerous presentations and participated in panels at the Center and the Naval Postgraduate School, as well as FEMA; she has served as a recurring speaker for the Center’s Emergence Program and has been asked to be an Innovation Lab Coach for the 2402 Emergence cohort working with students on their change initiatives; she participated in the 2021–2022 Climate and Security Advisory Group Climate Security Fellowship Program; and she has served on the NPS Climate and Security Network (CSN) Planning Team since October 2023.
Most recently, Wright served as a speaker at the NPS CSN COP 29 Roundtable this month, and she’s set to be a climate change panelist at the Center’s APEX 2025 event on Feb. 18–20.
And, Wright is currently working with CHDS Strategic Communications Director Heather Issvoran and others to launch the CHDS Climate Security Working Group.
Katelin Wright’s thesis
The Perfect Storm: Climate-Induced Migration to the United States
Wright said her climate change work is “all very full circle,” noting that she started with an APEX presentation shortly after her 2020 CHDS graduation and that morphed into an invitation by former Emergence Director David O’Keefe to speak to a class, and her involvement has grown exponentially from there. She added that she wants to encourage others to pursue their academic passion, even if it’s not related directly to their careers.
“Everything I’ve done with climate change has nothing to do with my day job; my day job is training new employees and continuous education with RIO and my two worlds have yet to collide, [though] I keep hoping they will. But in the meantime, I just feel really passionate about the effects of climate change, especially on migration, so I’ve just kept it going,” she said. “I like to tell the students you can have your day-to-day career and an issue you’re passionate about and they don’t necessarily have to be related.”
According to Wright, the concept behind the latest climate change initiative—the CHDS Climate Working Group—is “pretty simple” and at its core recognizes that homeland security professionals are and will be increasingly dealing with climate-related security issues in a similar way that the U.S. military generally, and the U.S. Navy and NPS specifically, already have been including through the CSN. She said the lack of direct CHDS representation and involvement with the CSN “felt like a missed opportunity,” so she began working with Issvoran and others on creating the working group.
“That’s really the goal, to really bridge this gap between CHDS and NPS in terms of the work we’re doing in climate security. […] There’s a need and we’ve got so many smart, incredible students and alumni that are working in this space to try to make change and I just don’t think we’re talking to one another.”
– Katelin Wright
The goals of the working group, she said, include offering CHDS students access to climate change experts for reference during thesis or change initiative research, noting that was lacking during her own thesis research, as well as a network of experts in other related fields such as energy and supply chain, and finally, incorporation into the larger NPS CSN.
“That’s really the goal, to really bridge this gap between CHDS and NPS in terms of the work we’re doing in climate security,” Wright said. “That’s really the driving force for me, why I want to do this, there’s a need and we’ve got so many smart, incredible students and alumni that are working in this space to try to make change and I just don’t think we’re talking to one another.”
Next steps include securing final approval from CHDS administration for the working group, conducting an inaugural CHDS Climate Experts meeting in January, and hosting a CSN-CHDS webinar in March or April, according to Wright. Anyone working in a climate-change-related field, or simply interested in climate security, is welcome to join the CHDS Climate Security Working Group by emailing Wright (katelin.wright20@gmail.com), Issvoran (hissvora@nps.edu), or CHDS subject matter expert Dan O’Connor.
