Project Partner: Liberty Mutual Insurance, Spring 2026

Project Summary:  As climate change drives more frequent and severe weather events, insurers need better tools to understand and price risk. During her internship, Jenna helped bridge climate data and business decision-making by creating GIS-based visualizations that enabled underwriters to assess exposure and make more informed policy decisions. Her work involved cleaning and transforming large datasets, integrating them into ArcGIS Pro, and developing maps that highlighted climate-related risks across different regions. Jenna analyzed high-risk areas, visualized historical hazard patterns, and supported loss-scenario assessments. Key projects included mapping university campuses against historical hurricane tracks to evaluate potential exposure and creating a nationwide heat stress index map to identify areas vulnerable to extreme temperatures. By translating complex climate and geospatial data into clear, actionable insights, Jenna helped improve data accessibility across the company, support underwriting decisions, and strengthen client relationships.

“The tools and analyses I developed enabled stakeholders to better understand emerging risks and make more confident business decisions. This experience showed me how data analytics can drive real-world business outcomes beyond academic research. It strengthened my skills in GIS, data analysis, coding, cross-functional collaboration, and communicating technical information to non-technical audiences.” – Jenna Sorenson

Project Deliverables: 

  • GIS maps presented and shared internally within organization
  • Reports documenting repeatable methodology
  • Research write-ups on ArcPro and Arc Online capabilities and best practices
Web App Map Jenna developed as part of her internship to access publicly available FEMA
Flood Map data.

 

Watch Jenna’s URBAN internship lightning talk here.