Kelly Leilani Main
Climate change adaptation, wetland ecosystems, colonialism, North Africa, historical map analysis, GIS.
Kelly Leilani Main is executive director and founder of Buy-In Community Planning, a 501c3 organization providing equitable and accessible voluntary relocation services for communities on the frontlines of irreversible climate impacts and industrial pollution. Before founding Buy-In, Main worked as a planner, designer, researcher, and geospatial analyst at the intersection of climate adaptation planning and human rights-driven relocation policy in contexts diverse as the Philippines, Turkey, Ghana, Uganda, Peru, Nepal, Lebanon, Palestine, and the U.S.
At UC Berkeley, her research focuses on the intersection of managed retreat and ecosystem restoration. More specifically, her research investigates the impacts of colonialism on wetlands and aims to provide strategies and theories in support of environmental reparations in post colonial states.
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium: "Climate Migration and Displacement: What is the role of environmental design?", UC Berkeley, Spring 2024
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium: "Bridging Disciplinary Differences", UC Berkeley, Fall 2023
Environmental Science for Sustainable Development UC Berkeley Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental planning, Fall 2021, with G. Mathias Kondolf
UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Sultan Program in Arab Studies, Research Grant, 2024-2025
UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Al-Falah Program in Islamic Studies, Research Grant, 2024-2025
UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Stevens Scholars Project, Research Grant, 2024
UC Berkeley Global Metropolitan Studies Summer Research Grant, 2024
UC Berkeley Social Sciences Research Matrix Research grant, 2022-2023
Regents Fellowship for Graduate Study, UC Berkeley, 2021-2023
Grist 50 #Fixers, 2021
Sasaki Foundation Community Design Award, 2019. - “Eastie for Eastie: A toolkit for managed retreat”
Guest co-editor for May 2018 Issue of FrankNews.us on Urban Planning
Aga Khan Summer Fellowship – June 2017: “Settlement-based approach” to humanitarian response in Beirut, Lebanon
Architect Magazine Studio Prize 2017 Winner (Urbanism After Extraction)
UC Berkeley Dean’s Honors: top 4% of the Letters and Science. Honors to 12/12, 05/13, 12/13, 5/14
High Honors from UC Berkeley Interdisciplinary Studies Field Department on Undergraduate Thesis Work
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Kelly Leilani MAIN, Joude MABSOUT, Rafi SEGAL, Nese DOGUSAN ALEXANDER, Olivia SERRA, Muge KOMURCU. Swap Strategy for Urban Resilience: Reviving the Ayamama River Corridor and Ataturk Decommissioned Airport in Istanbul, Turkey. Landsc. Archit. Front., 2021, 9(6): 44‒58
Marandi, A. & Main, K. L. (2021).Vulnerable City, recipient city, or climate destination? Towards a typology of domestic climate migration impacts in US cities. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 11(3), 465–480.
Kelly Leilani Main, Miho Mazereeuw, Fadi Masoud, Jia Lu, Aditya Barve, Mayank Ojha, and Chetan Krishna. “Climate action zones: A clustering methodology for resilient spatial planning in climate uncertainty.” Enhancing Disaster Preparedness: From Humanitarian Architecture to Community Resilience. Edited by A. Nuno Martins, Mahmood Fayazi, Faten Kikano, and Liliane Hobeica, Eselvier, 2020, 241-248.
Eliyahu Keller & Kelly Leilani Main (2020). After the Flood: Water, Climate Crisis, and Architectural Imagination. Journal of Architectural Education, 74:1, 126-128, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.2020.1693838
Mark Scott, Mick Lennon, Daniel Tubridy, Patrick Marchman, A.R. Siders, Kelly Leilani Main, Victoria Herrmann, Debra Butler, Kathryn Frank, Karyn Bosomworth, Raphaele Blanchi & Cassidy Johnson (2020), Climate Disruption and Planning: Resistance or Retreat?, Planning Theory & Practice, 21:1, 125-154, DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2020.1704130
Bellotti Giovanni, Main Kelly Leilani, Diana Ang, et al. The Civic Forest. Landscape Architecture Frontiers., 2018, 6(6): 102-109. https://journal.hep.com.cn/laf/EN/10.15302/J-LAF-20180613
Main, Kelly Leilani. (2015). Bombing the Tomb: Memorial Portraiture and Street Art in Revolutionary Cairo. Berkeley Undergraduate Journal, 28(1). our_buj_25789. Retrieved from:
Other Publications & Reports
Kelly Leilani Main, Risa Hiser, Victoria Woods, Osamu Kumasaka, Maggie Tsang, and Isaac Stein. “What do we do with the land left behind? Exploratory Scenario Planning for Floodplain buyout parcels.” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. August 2022.
Anna Marandi and Kelly Leilani Main, “The Next American migration: What Cities Should Know About Climate Change and Populations on the Move” National League of Cities, 2022.
“Forced from Home: A Human Rights Assessment of Displacement and Evictions in Boston’s Chinatown.” MIT Displacement Research Action Network. (2019)
“Starter Communities: Rural Urbanism in Cavite Province, Philippines.” MIT Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. (2019)
Main, Kelly. Limitations of the Owner-Driven Reconstruction Model in Nepal. MIT Displacement Research Action Network Blog. April 23, 2018.