Devon Parfait

GUEST SPEAKER

Devon Parfait is the chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw and a ’22 graduate of Williams College, where he majored in Geoscience. Throughout his undergraduate degree, he studied how coastal land loss is disproportionately affecting tribal communities in southeast Louisiana.

Chief Parfait has had varied work experience ranging from developing media and GIS projects with the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to conducting fieldwork on shoreline change in the Gulf Islands National Seashore with the National Park Service. Parfait has also held several other leadership roles through the Native Youth Community Adaptation Leadership Congress and the Y Bold and Gold Advisory Council.

Parfait is currently working as a coastal resilience analyst for Environmental Defense Fund and for the Mississippi River Delta coalition, where he is working to support the science committee and to help advance justice for coastal communities.

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