Regional Administrator for EPA's South Central Region (Region 6)

Earthea Nance, PhD, PE

On December 9, 2021, Earthea Nance was appointed by President Biden as the EPA Regional Administrator for Region 6. Earthea is an environmental engineer who has, for two decades, worked with communities at disproportionate risk of environmental hazards. As a professor and graduate student, she conducted community-based research after Hurricane Katrina, during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and in communities without safe water and sanitation in Brazil and Mozambique.

After Hurricane Harvey, she brought community and equity perspectives into regional disaster policy during her service on the Greater Houston Flood Mitigation Consortium and on the Harris County Community Flood Resilience Task Force. As a public official serving as director of disaster mitigation and planning for the City of New Orleans after Katrina, Dr. Nance managed $60 million in flood mitigation funds and created the City’s first approved plans for hazard mitigation, sustainability, and green energy. Prior to that, she served as an environmental engineer at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she was part of a groundbreaking program to mitigate the risk of dispersal of radioactive material. 

Earthea has produced over 60 publications and conference papers while serving on the faculty of Texas Southern University, the University of New Orleans, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Virginia Tech. She earned a Ph.D. degree in environmental engineering from Stanford University, and M.S. and B.S. degrees in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California-Davis. She has been a registered professional civil engineer for 25 years and a certified floodplain manager for 12 years.