Shalini is a nationally recognized infrastructure expert with nearly two decades of experience designing and financing community-centered resilient infrastructure solutions. Before starting re:focus, Shalini served as Special Representative in the Office of Administrator Lisa Jackson at the Environmental Protection Agency. In this position, she led the US-Brazil Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability (JIUS) announced in March 2011 by Presidents Obama and Rousseff. Previously, Shalini served as Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Office of International & Tribal Affairs at the US EPA and as Deputy Associate Director for Energy and Climate at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She joined the Obama Administration from Resources for the Future, where she was awarded a patent for her work on the Adaptation Atlas. Shalini received her PhD in Engineering & Public Policy and B.Arch in Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. She was also a visiting associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies from 2013-2014, where she designed and taught courses on Case Studies in Sustainable Development, and a nonresident senior fellow with The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.

Shalini is a nationally recognized infrastructure expert with nearly two decades of experience designing and financing community-centered resilient infrastructure solutions.