Jamie Albrecht has been named the new program fellow for the Democratizing Resilience and Disaster Recovery (DRDR) initiative in Northern California.

The initiative's goal is to ensure that frontline communities facing significant risk from natural and climate hazards have agency in the recovery process and a voice in planning for their future. DRDR seeks to address some of the structural barriers to community participation and community-driven outcomes by providing technical assistance to community-based organizations, public sector agencies and philanthropic partners in their efforts to mitigate and recover from future risks.

Albrecht leads the creation of the DRDR website that will provide accessible resources for stakeholders to understand the complicated world of disaster planning and recovery. She’s also developing a programmatic strategy to activate the website. In her program fellow role, Jamie manages the DRDR advisory board and helps build strong relationships among the participating groups.
 
Albrecht comes to Enterprise from the Impact360 Alliance, an initiative inside the University of Washington to break down the barriers between researchers and practitioners in disaster planning, programs and policies. Before that, she had a long career in federal and local government. She worked at the City of Berkeley’s Office of Emergency Services, where she co-wrote, and project managed the city’s 2019 Local Hazard Mitigation Plan. Albrecht also spent several years in the federal government at 18F, transforming the way that government delivers digital services to the public. As one example, she served as the bilingual researcher on a cross-country project to improve the process of enrolling in income-based benefits programs, such as food stamps. She is fluent in Spanish because she spent two years in El Salvador with Peace Corps.

Albrecht holds a master's degree in City Planning from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor's degree in International Studies from American University. She is the proud child of a single mom and subsidized housing.