Dr. Frances Roberts-Gregory

Dr. Frances Roberts-Gregor is the lead researcher of The Rhizome Report: An Archival Storytelling Project, which documents the experiences of people of color through the continued overlapping attacks on environmental policy and DEI.

Dr. Frances Roberts-Gregory is a Feminist Political Ecologist, Ecowomanist Storyteller, and Performance Artist (dancer and cosplayer). She leads environmental education, climate advocacy, and youth engagement projects for BIPOC, queer, abolitionist, and feminist organizations committed to grassroots community solutions, translocal philanthropic organizing, and intersectional environmental, energy, and climate justice.

Trained as an environmental scientist, climate anthropologist, and community geographer, Dr. Roberts-Gregory researches the role and political priorities of U.S. Afrodiasporic communities, BIPOC youth, and women’s organizations at United Nations climate negotiations as well as Black and Indigenous women’s everyday strategies of resistance to environmental violence and state-corporate crime. Her postdoctoral feminist activist research likewise supports capacity-building for ecofeminist and pan-African transnational coalitions through the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, the UNFCCC Women and Gender Constituency, and the Global Afro-Descendants Climate Justice Collaborative. She formerly taught as a Visiting Faculty at Tulane University, Bard Early College New Orleans, the UN-affiliated University for Peace in Costa Rica, and the School for International Training (SIT) International Honors Program across Ecuador, Morocco, and Nepal.

Dr. Roberts-Gregory earned a BA in Environmental Science, Sociology, and Anthropology from Spelman College and a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley. She later completed postdoctoral fellowships at Northeastern University and the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE) at the Salata Institute for Climate & Sustainability. Dr. Roberts-Gregory additionally served as a Climate Justice Program Officer at the Foundation for Louisiana and as a Program Director of Leadership Development at the Northeastern University Initiative for Energy Justice. Past and current partners include the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ), Black in Environment, The Green Leadership Trust, The Chisholm Legacy Project, and the Environmental Grantmakers Association. She formerly served on the board of the Hive Fund for Climate & Gender Justice and currently serves on the boards of One Square World, Climate Critical, and the HBCU Green Fund.