Tirusew Asefa is the planning and decision support group lead at Tampa Bay Water, the largest wholesale water supplier in the Southeast USA. He is responsible for applied research and model development, and implementation of water resources decision support tools of which many consider variety of issues with climate change and sea level rise. He has developed and sustained exemplary academia/industry partnerships on tackling climate issues for the last decade and half.

Tirusew currently chairs the Florida Water and Climate Alliance: a stakeholder-driven partnership that brings together public water utilities, academic researchers, and climate scientists to assess and adapt to climate change and extreme weather impacts on water resources in Florida.

Tirusew led one of the first assessments of the potential sea level rise impacts to Tampa Bay area and implications to agency resource and infrastructure. He has been active in climate related issues across regional, state, national, and international levels. Tirusew is one of the water chapter writers of the National Climate Assessment #5, a congressionally mandated quadrennial report.