Rohit T. "Rit" Aggarwala is an American environmental policy adviser, transportation planner, historian, and civil servant who is New York City’s Chief Climate Officer as well as the Commissioner of the

New York City Department of Environmental Protection The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's water supply and works to reduce air, noise, and hazardous materials pollution. Under a 1.3 billion do ...

Biography

Aggarwala grew up in

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = , subdivisi ...

. He received his B.A. in history from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in 1993, before going on to earn his MPhil, Ph.D. in history as well as an M.B.A., all from Columbia over a span of ten years. He also earned a MA in Canadian history from Queen's University at Kingston. At Columbia, he was a reporter for ''

Columbia Daily Spectator The ''Columbia Daily Spectator'' (known colloquially as the ''Spec'') is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after ''The Harvard Crimson'', and has ...

'' and president of the College Democrats. His advisors included

Richard Bushman Richard Lyman Bushman (June 20, 1931) is an American historian and Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, having previously taught at Brigham Young University, Harvard University, Boston University, and the Univ ...

Kenneth T. Jackson Kenneth Terry Jackson (born 1939) is a professor emeritus of history and social sciences at Columbia University. A frequent television guest, he is best known as an urban historian and a preeminent authority on the history of New York City, where ...

, and Elizabeth Blackmar. Aggarwala began his career in

Federal Railroad Administration The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail s ...

and worked for

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Assem ...

Virginia Railway Express Virginia Railway Express (VRE) is a commuter rail service that connects outlying small cities of Northern Virginia to Union Station in Washington, D.C. It operates two lines which run during weekday rush hour only: the Fredericksburg Line f ...

, prior to joining public service. Aggarwala was tapped by

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

to create the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and served as director of the office from 2006 to 2010. He also helped author the PlaNYC blueprint, a sustainability plan for the city. From 2010 to 2015, he worked at

Bloomberg Philanthropies Bloomberg Philanthropies is a philanthropic organization that encompasses all of the charitable giving of founder Michael R. Bloomberg. Headquartered in New York City, Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses its resources on five areas: the environme ...

, heading its sustainability practice division. He served as Chair, Committee on the Fourth Regional Plan, for the Regional Plan Association from the inception of the process in 2014 until the publication of the Fourth Plan in 2017. He was president of the board of directors of the

C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a group of 97 cities around the world that represents one twelfth of the world's population and one quarter of the global economy. Created and led by cities, C40 is focused on fighting climate change a ...

and was a member of the founding team of

Sidewalk Labs Sidewalk Labs is an urban planning and infrastructure subsidiary of Google. Its stated goal is to improve urban infrastructure through technological solutions, and tackle issues such as cost of living, efficient transportation and energy usage. ...

, where he served as chief policy officer, head of urban systems, and remained a senior advisor. For his role at Sidewalk Labs, he was named one of the "Politico 50" by the eponymous magazine in 2018. He led a high-profile smart city-building project in

Waterfront Toronto Waterfront Toronto (incorporated as the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation) is an organization that oversees revitalization projects along the Toronto waterfront. Established in 2001 as a public–public partnership between the Cit ...

before it was cancelled in May 2020 due to stakeholders' disagreements, privacy concerns and the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, which also led to his exit from the company. In 2020, he was named Senior Urban Tech Fellow at Cornell Tech. He is the lead author of the ''Rebooting NYC'' report, published by Cornell Tech in 2022, which proposes urban tech solutions to New York City's biggest challenges. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the

School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University (SIPA) is the international affairs and public policy school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university located in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York City. It ...

, where he teaches urban policy. In January 2022, he was tapped by Mayor

Eric Adams Eric Leroy Adams (born September 1, 1960) is an American politician and retired police captain serving as the 110th mayor of New York City since January 1, 2022. Adams was an officer in the New York City Transit Police and then the New York ...

to serve as chief climate officer and commissioner of the

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aggarwala, Rohit Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Columbia Business School alumni Queen's University at Kingston alumni Commissioners in New York City Cornell Tech faculty Google employees People from White Plains, New York 1971 births Living people Columbia University faculty