Bennetta (she/her) serves as a Senior Researcher for Renewable Energy Organizing at the AFL-CIO within the Economic Power & Growth Hub. Previously, Bennetta has served as an environmental justice program manager at One Voice, Inc., a non-profit based in Jackson, MS. and as a Program Officer at the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), providing financial resources and capacity-building opportunities across various US geographies to ensure grassroots and community-based non-profits, institutional partners, and local and regional governments collaboratively implement equitable, data-driven climate solutions. Bennetta believes that equitable climate solutions will be the defining factors that make good cities great cities.
Bennetta’s research span has ranged from the analysis of the effects of abandoned oil and gas wells in communities of color along “Cancer Alley” to modeling the impacts of natural disasters on vulnerable populations to documenting the challenges of collective bargaining in the southern United States. Bennetta serves as Co-Chair on the City of Seattle Environmental Justice Committee. She completed undergraduate studies at Mississippi State University, graduate studies at Iowa State University, and a doctoral degree in Urban and Regional Planning at Jackson State University with a concentration in Environment and Land Use.
