Diana Jaramillo

Climate risk and resilience of schools and education systems in a changing climate

Diana Jaramillo is a DPhil candidate in environmental and spatial modelling, working at the intersection of climate risk, infrastructure systems, and education access in low- and middle-income countries. Her research is supervised by Professor Jim Hall and funded by the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Diana’s research focuses on how climate hazards—particularly flooding—disrupt schools and access to education, and how weaknesses in interconnected infrastructure systems amplify these impacts. She develops high-resolution, reproducible geospatial models to quantify inequalities in accessibility, identify vulnerability hotspots, and evaluate how data quality and modelling assumptions shape policy-relevant results.

Diana’s work combines large-scale spatial data integration with system-of-systems thinking, linking school locations and populations with transport networks, electricity and mobile connectivity, and climate hazard layers. A central aim of her research is to improve how education and social infrastructure are represented in climate risk and resilience assessments, and to support more equitable, evidence-based investment decisions.

Methodologically, she works with continental-scale and national datasets using open and reproducible pipelines (Python, R and Snakemake workflow-based modelling), and places particular emphasis on validation, transparency and uncertainty arising from population data, spatial resolution and modelling assumptions.

Alongside her academic work, Diana also consults for the World Bank and the Howden Foundation.

Prior to starting her DPhil, Diana worked as an Associate at Climate Risk Services, supporting clients in understanding and managing their climate- and nature-related risks. She also worked as a Global Risk and Resilience Analyst at the Environmental Change Institute, where she contributed to the UK FCDO High Volume Transport project Decision Support Systems for Resilient Strategic Transport Networks.

Diana graduated with a distinction from the MSc program in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford. She also holds a BSc degree in Environmental Engineering from Columbia University, where she also graduated with honours.

• Pant, R., Peard, A., Thacker, S., Jaramillo, D., Russell, T. and Hall, J. (2023) Estimating investment needs for climate adaptation in the Eastern Caribbean [Final Report]. Oxford Infrastructure Analytics Ltd.
• Hickford, A., Blainey, S., Pant, R., Jaramillo, D., Russell, T., Preston, J., Hall, J., Young, M. and Glasgow, G. (2023) Decision support systems for resilient strategic transport networks in low-income countries (HVT/043). UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
• Pant, R., Jaramillo, D. and Hall, J. (2022) Systemic assessment of climate risks and adaptation options for transport networks in East Africa. Adaptive Pathways for Resilient Infrastructure. DRI Technical Conference 2022.