Megan Mullin

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Megan Mullin is Professor of Public Policy and holds the Luskin Endowed Chair in Innovation and Sustainability at UCLA. She is Faculty Director of the Luskin Center for Innovation, which partners with civic leaders on research to advance equitable public policy addressing environmental challenges.

Mullin is a political scientist whose research examines how coordination problems, accountability failure, and inequality in environmental risks and benefits shape political response to environmental change. Recent projects focus on the governance and finance of urban water services, public opinion about climate change, and the local politics of climate adaptation. She also has published on federalism, election rules and voter turnout, and local and state institutional design.

Mullin’s work has appeared in Nature, Science, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and other journals in political science, public administration, and planning. She is the recipient of five awards from the American Political Science Association, including the Lynton Keith Caldwell Award for her book, Governing the Tap: Special District Governance and the New Local Politics of Water (MIT Press, 2009). Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, and private foundations. She works regularly with policy makers, and her research and commentary have appeared in many national and international media outlets. In 2020, she was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

Mullin received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. She served on the faculties at Temple University and Duke University prior to joining UCLA in 2023.

Kirsten Schwarz

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Kirsten Schwarz is an urban ecologist working at the interface of environment, equity, and health. Her research focuses on environmental hazards and amenities in cities and how their distribution impacts minoritized communities. Her work on lead contaminated soils documents how biogeophysical and social variables relate to the spatial patterning of soil lead. Her research on urban tree canopy has revealed large scale patterns related to income and tree canopy as well as historical legacies that impact this relationship. Most recently, Dr. Schwarz led an interdisciplinary team working on a community-engaged green infrastructure design that integrated participatory design and place-based solutions to realizing desired ecosystem services.

Her expertise in science communication and engaging communities in the co-production of science was recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) naming her a Fellow in the Leshner Leadership Institute in the Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology. Dr. Schwarz’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, AAAS, and the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Dr. Schwarz has a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic and a Ph.D. in Ecology from Rutgers University. Prior to joining UCLA, she was an Associate Professor of Environmental Science at Northern Kentucky University where she directed their Ecological Stewardship Institute.

Selected Publications:

Schwarz, K., A. Berland, and D.L. Herrmann. 2018. Green, but not just: Rethinking environmental justice outcomes in shrinking cities. Sustainable Cities and Society 41:816-821.

Ossola, A., L.A. Schifman, D.L. Herrmann, A.S. Garmestani, K. Schwarz, and M.E. Hopton. 2018. The provision of urban ecosystem services throughout the private-social-public domain: a conceptual framework. Cities and the Environment 11(1): Article 5.

Herrmann, D.L., W-C Chuang, K. Schwarz, T.M. Bowles, A.S. Garmestani, W.D. Shuster, T. Eason, M.E. Hopton, C.R. Allen. 2018. Agroecology for the shrinking city. Sustainability 10(3):675.

Cutts, B.B., J.K. London, S. Meiners, K. Schwarz, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2017. Moving dirt: Soil, lead and the unstable politics of urban gardening. Local Environment 22(8):998-1018.

London, J.K., K. Schwarz, M.L. Cadenasso, B.B. Cutts, C. Mason, J. Lim, K. Valenzuela-Garcia and H. Smith. 2017. Weaving community-university research and action partnerships for environmental justice. Action Research 16(2):173-189.

Schwarz, K., R.V. Pouyat, and I. Yesilonis. 2016. Legacies of lead in charm city’s soil: Lessons from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13(2):209.

Herrmann, D.L., K. Schwarz, W.D. Shuster, A. Berland, B.C. Chaffin, A.S. Garmestani, and M.E. Hopton. 2016. Ecology for the shrinking city. BioScience 66(11):965-973.

Schwarz, K., B.B. Cutts, J.K. London, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2016. Growing gardens in shrinking cities: A solution to the soil lead problem? Sustainability 8(2):141.

Cutts, B.B., D. Fang, K. Hornik, J.K. London, K. Schwarz and M.L. Cadenasso. 2016. Media frames and shifting places of environmental (in)justice: a qualitative historical geographic information system method. Environmental Justice 9(1):23-28.

Berland, A., K. Schwarz, D. L. Herrmann, M.E. Hopton. 2015. How environmental justice patterns are shaped by place: terrain and tree canopy in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Cities and the Environment 8(1):Article 1.

Schwarz, K., M. Fragkias, C.G. Boone, W. Zhou, M. McHale, J.M. Grove, J. O’Neil-Dunne, J.P. McFadden, G.L. Buckley, D. Childers, L. Ogden, S. Pincetl, D. Pataki, A. Whitmer, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2015. Trees grow on money: urban tree canopy cover and environmental justice. PLoS ONE 10(4).

Zhou, W., M.L. Cadenasso, K. Schwarz, and S.T.A. Pickett. 2014. Quantifying spatial heterogeneity in urban landscapes: integrating visual interpretation and object-based classification. Remote Sensing 6(4):3369-3386.

Schwarz, K., K.C. Weathers, S.T.A. Pickett, R.G. Lathrop, R.V. Pouyat, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2013. A comparison of three empirically based, spatially explicit predictive models of residential soil Pb concentrations in Baltimore, Maryland USA: understanding the variability within cities. Environmental Geochemistry and Health 35(4):495-510.

Schwarz, K., S.T.A. Pickett, R.G. Lathrop, K.C. Weathers, R.V. Pouyat, and M.L. Cadenasso.  2012. The effects of the urban built environment on the spatial distribution of lead in residential soils. Environmental Pollution 163:32-39.

Osmond, D.L., N.M. Nadkarni, C.T. Driscoll, E. Andrews, A.J. Gold, S.R. Broussard Allred, A.R. Berkowitz, M.W. Klemens, T.L. Loecke, M.A. McGarry, K. Schwarz, M.L. Washington and P.M. Groffman. 2010. The role of interface organizations in science communication and understanding. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 8(6):306-313.

Boone, C.G., M.L. Cadenasso, J.M. Grove, K. Schwarz, and G.L. Buckley. 2010. Landscape, vegetation characteristics, and group identity in an urban and suburban watershed: why the 60s matter. Urban Ecosystems 13(3):255-271.

Zhou, W., K. Schwarz, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2010. Mapping urban landscape heterogeneity: agreement between visual interpretation and digital classification approaches. Landscape Ecology 25(1):53-67.

Cadenasso, M.L., S.T.A. Pickett, and K. Schwarz. 2007. Spatial heterogeneity in urban ecosystems: reconceptualizing land cover and a framework for classification. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5(2):80-88.

Grove, J.M., M.L. Cadenasso, W.R. Burch, Jr., S.T.A. Pickett, K.Schwarz, J. O’Neil-Dunne, M. Wilson, A. Troy, and C.Boone. 2006. Data and methods comparing social structure and vegetation structure of urban neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. Society and Natural Resources 19:117-136.

Tam J. Guy

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Tam J. Guy is a doctoral student in Urban Planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Previously, Tam explored how planners can and should create sustainable places for everyone by researching equity impacts at the intersection of transportation, housing, and green infrastructure. Currently, Tam researches the public transit experiences of people who are transgender as part of a larger effort to understand the interactions between gender, public space, and public transportation.

Tam earned a BSBA in management and leadership from Portland State University while working as an analyst at a securities litigation firm and then completed dual masters degrees, MBA and MCMP, at the University of Utah in Business Administration (with emphases in strategy and innovation) and City + Metropolitan Planning (focused on smart growth, transportation, and urban design).

Liz Koslov

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Liz Koslov is Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Environment and Sustainability, and Sociology at UCLA. Her research brings an interdisciplinary ethnographic approach to analyzing the politics of urban climate change adaptation, particularly debates over how to respond to sea-level rise, flooding, and wildfire. At UCLA she teaches on climate change through the lens of the built environment, the social life of sea-level rise, and environmental and climate justice.

Much of Dr. Koslov’s work critically examines the idea and process of “managed retreat” from high-risk areas. She is writing a book, Retreat: Moving to Higher Ground in a Climate-Changed City, that follows homeowners in Staten Island, New York, who organized to seek buyouts after Hurricane Sandy that would permanently demolish portions of their neighborhoods. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she leads a collaborative project on the intersection of managed retreat and wildfire (see also this New York Times guest essay). Additional interests include the shifting meanings of urban natures, the politics of risk mapping, and media and climate change.

Before coming to UCLA, Dr. Koslov was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities and Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT. She received a PhD in Media, Culture, and Communication from NYU, where she was affiliated with the Institute for Public Knowledge and the Superstorm Research Lab, a mutual-aid research collective studying climate change, disaster, inequality, and urban politics. She holds an MSc in Culture and Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in Communication and Spanish and Latin American Literatures from the George Washington University.

Silvia R. Gonzalez

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Silvia Gonzalez (Jimenez) is a doctoral student in Urban Planning and the Assistant Director at the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research interests focus on the implications of place and the urban spatial structure on socioeconomic inequality. Previously, Silvia worked with the Center for the Study of Inequality at UCLA. She has worked extensively, as a researcher and consultant with nonprofit, community based, and government organizations. She holds a BA in Geography/Environmental Studies from UCLA and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on Economic Development also from UCLA.

Selected Publications:

Loukaitou-Sideris, A., Gonzalez, S., & Ong, P. (2017). Triangulating Neighborhood Knowledge to Understand Neighborhood Change: Methods to Study Gentrification. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 0739456X17730890.

Pierce, G., & Gonzalez, S. R. (2017). Public Drinking Water System Coverage and Its Discontents: The Prevalence and Severity of Water Access Problems in California’s Mobile Home Parks. Environmental Justice.

Pierce, Gregory, and Silvia Gonzalez. “Mistrust at the tap? Factors contributing to public drinking water (mis) perception across US households.” Water Policy 19, no. 1 (2017): 1-12.

Pierce, Gregory, and Silvia Jimenez. “Unreliable water access in US mobile homes: evidence from the American Housing Survey.” Housing Policy Debate 25.4 (2015): 739-753.

Jimenez, Silvia, and Gregory Pierce. “Inequality at the Tap: Explaining Shortcomings in Safe Water Access in Los Angeles’ Mobile Home Communities.” UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Social Justice Fellowship Publication. (2013). Online at: http://luskin.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/Jimenez_Pierce.pdf