Julianne Baker Gallegos is a Junior Professional Associate focusing on the relationship between cities and climate change at the World Bank's Urban Development and Local Government Unit. She is originally from Costa Rica, where she studied biology and specialized in climate change impacts on coastal ecosystems. She became interested in the urban environment while obtaining her Master’s degree in Environmental Management at Yale University. Julianne’s graduate research focused on climate change adaptation policy and practice and disaster risk in a peri-urban community located in the outskirts of the city of Bogotá, Colombia. She has worked in the field in Latin America and Southern Africa and has collaborated with several international and local NGOs as well as with the UNDP.