Daniel Aldana Cohen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, and serves as a member of the Graduate Group of the Designated Emphasis in Political Economy. He is also Founding Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), a progressive climate and economy think tank. He has been a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar (2021-24), and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (2018-19). He is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019). 

Cohen works on the intersections of the climate emergency, housing, political economy, social movements, and inequalities of race and class in the United States and Brazil. As Director of (SC)2, he is leading qualitative and quantitative research projects on Whole Community Climate Mapping, green political economy, and eco-apartheid. He was also co-founder and co-PI of the Superstorm Research Lab, in New York City. 

Cohen’s research has appeared in a range of journals, including Nature; Environmental Politics; Public Culture; The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research; Scientific Data; Environmental Justice; City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action; NACLA Report on the Americas. He is the co-editor of a special issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas, A Green New Deal for the Americas: Mobilizing for Climate Justice from Above and Below.

His public writing has appeared in outlets like the The New York Times; The Guardian; Time; The Nation; Jacobin; Dissent; and elsewhere. He was co-host of the Hot & Bothered podcast, and has guest-hosted The Dig.

Cohen is also leading collaborative research for Green New Deal policy development, and intersectional climate policies more broadly, in partnership with social movements and progressive elected officials in the United States and Brazil. He led the research for the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act introduced in Congress by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Sanders.

Cohen’s research and public engagement have been featured in NPR, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Vox, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Huffington Post, Energy & Environment News, and elsewhere. 

Follow him on Bluesky @aldasky.bsky.social and X @aldatweets.

Photo: Genevieve Shiffrar.