Background
Laura Giannini serves as Disasters Program Coordinator for NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Disasters program area. Originally from Italy, Giannini brings over twenty years of experience in the nonprofit and corporate sectors. She has dedicated her career to advocating for climate change action while serving organizations and firms like Oxfam International, the World Health Organization (WHO), Water.org, and Waterkeeper Alliance. During the last thirty years, she lived and worked in over forty countries where she supported climate change, partnership development, microfinance, and disaster relief interventions.
For over a decade, Giannini worked closely with indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest and the Golden Triangle region and advocated for climate change and disaster resilience initiatives. Her love of travel and passion for cultural diversity is expressed through her many assignments in different parts of the world where she provided communities and responders with resources that helped them prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In the USA, she focused on the development of partnerships and corporate social responsibility management for the private and public sectors. She served as Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihoods Regional Advisor for Oxfam International and dedicated her career to calling for policies that invest in climate change and sustainable solutions for rural communities.
Giannini’s career has led her to develop and manage strategic partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders including corporations, government entities, and nonprofit organizations like JPMorgan Chase, Google, Amazon, USAID, FEMA, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Save the Children, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and UNICEF. Being multilingual, she has had the privilege of working with a very diverse range of partners and communities. Giannini believes in the effectiveness of a grassroots approach and bottom-up program development that is driven by beneficiaries' needs. She is also passionate about documentary filmmaking and ethnic photography, which has led her to produce different types of media for private and public firms.
Giannini holds a Master's Degree in International Politics and Economics of Development from the School of International Politics Cooperation and Development, Universita’ Pontificia in Italy; a Bachelor's Degree in Film Studies from the University of California at Berkeley; and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Human Rights Studies from the Fondazione Internazionale Lelio Basso in Italy.