Envisioning and building a green community

Meet Jane Gilbert, the first person in history to have the title of chief heat officer. She joined Miami-Dade County's Office of Resilience in 2021. Working with leadership, community stakeholders and experts across departments and disciplines, she aspires to build and design solutions that reduce rising temperatures' health and economic impacts and improve our quality of life.

"We can all help the environment and ourselves through our actions every day," said Gilbert. "No matter what your job, you can look for ways to protect yourself and co-workers, use energy and resources more efficiently and reduce carbon emissions." 

"We can design, build and maintain buildings and infrastructure to keep cool more affordably with more shady areas and green spaces," added Gilbert.

Gilbert works across County departments and with external partners to implement the County's Extreme Heat Action Plan. The Office of Resilience also has teams working on clean energy and carbon mitigation, sea level rise and more. "Together, we seek solutions that achieve multiple benefits," she added.

For instance, Gilbert works closely with the carbon mitigation team on increasing resources for energy-efficiency and healthy home retrofits for our low-income population. She is working on a very aggressive plan with multiple partners to get to a 30 percent tree canopy and increase investments in that and in the retrofits.

A graduate of Barnard College in New York and the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Gilbert's background includes working as an environmental management consultant. When she moved to Miami, she worked in nonprofit education, community engagement and corporate philanthropy. Most recently, she served as the city of Miami's first chief resilience officer.

"I'm passionate about creating a place where people have their foundational needs met and doing that in a way that cares for our environment and economy," Gilbert explained. "Building community and designing collaborative solutions for greater impact. That's what we are working towards."

A devoted mother of two, she enjoys swimming in the ocean and walking her dogs to relax and stay fit.

Learn more about Chief Heat Officer Jane Gilbert by visiting featured profiles online, such as MIT Technology Review, Governing and Enterprise.