Keith Bettinger is Lead Specialist for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in DAI’s Climate Integration Team. After completing his bachelors and masters degrees, he worked in Japan as an English teacher. During this time he traveled widely in Southeast Asia, where he encountered what he would later understand to be “development problems”. When he returned to the U.S., he decided to continue his graduate education, focusing on international development, and environmental issues and natural resource management in particular. After completing a Fulbright fellowship researching protected areas in Indonesia, he earned a doctorate in geography, studying the physical, cultural, social, and economic aspects of climate and environmental change. His dissertation employed a political ecology lens to examine the effects of the post-Suharto decentralization reforms on biodiversity conservation in Indonesia. Over the past decade, Keith has worked in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, focusing on Southeast Asia, the Pacific Island Countries, and Least Developed Countries.

• B.A., History and Political Science, Hendrix College
• M.A., Teaching, Secondary Education, Centenary College
• M.A., International Affairs, George Washington University
• PhD., Geography, University of Hawai‘i