Idowu "Jola" Ajibade

Idowu “Jola” Ajibade is an assistant professor of geography at Portland State University. She uses an environmental justice and political ecology lens to study the intersection of climate adaptation, urban sustainability and societal transformation.

Ajibade’s research focuses on how individuals, communities and cities respond to climate change and their different capacities for adaptation and transformation. She studies how historical injustices, planning policies, state practices and utopian solutions to climate change mix with exclusionary development patterns to undermine disadvantaged groups and communities.

Much of her work focuses on coastal cities of the Global South like Lagos, Manila and Tokyo, but she is also exploring resilience planning for cascading disasters in the Portland metro area.

Ajibade has two upcoming books co-authored with A.R. Siders of the University of Delaware. They explore socio-environmental justice and trade-offs in planned or managed relocation in response to climate change.