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.

 

Veronica Herrera

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Veronica Herrera, Ph.D., studies the politics of development and environmental governance in cities. She is a specialist in urban climate change governance issues related to water, wastewater, and solid waste management. To learn more, visit her website at https://veronicaherrera.luskin.ucla.edu.

Paavo Monkkonen

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Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He researches and writes about how policies and markets shape urbanization, social segregation, and housing affordability in cities around the world. His scholarship ranges from studies of large-scale national housing finance programs to analyses of local land use regulations, and uses comparison to derive novel insights. Past projects include studies in Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.

Professor Monkkonen’s research has been published in outlets such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Urban Economics, Urban Studies, World Development, and the Journal of Peasant Studies. He has received research funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Urban Land Institute, the Regional Studies Association, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He is currently studying the implementation of California’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing law and the social housing system in France.

At UCLA Luskin, Paavo teaches courses on housing policy, land value capture, applied microeconomics, research methods, and global urban segregation. He launched the Latin American Cities Initiative, Ciudades, to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in the arena of urban planning and policy in South, Central, and North America.

Paavo completed a Master of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He was Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2012, visiting scholar at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in 2015, visiting researcher at Sciences Po Paris from 2023-2024, and a fellow of the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies from 2024-2025.

LinkedIn profile

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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Meaningful Action: Evaluating Local Government Plans to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in California. Monkkonen, Paavo, Aaron Barrall, and Aurora Echavarria. 2024. Housing Policy Debate, forthcoming.

Built out cities? A new approach to measuring land use regulation. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Manville, and Michael Lens. 2024. Journal of Housing Economics, forthcoming.

Do Land Use Plans Affirmatively Further Fair Housing? Measuring Progress. Monkkonen, Paavo, Michael Lens, Moira O’Neill, Christopher Elmendorf, Greg Preston and Raine Robichaud. 2023. Journal of the American Planning Association, forthcoming.

The Heterogeneous Impacts of Widespread Upzoning: Lessons from Auckland, New Zealand. Cheung, William, and Edward Yiu. 2023. Urban Studies, 61(5), 943-967.

Does Discretion Delay Development? Manville, Michael, Paavo Monkkonen, Shane Phillips, and Nolan Gray. 2022. The Impact of Approval Pathways on Multifamily Housing’s Time to Permit. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89(3): 336-347.

Unwanted Housing: Localism and Politics of Housing Development. Manville, Michael, and Paavo Monkkonen. 2021. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 44(2): 685–700.

Opposition to Development or Opposition to Developers? Experimental Evidence on Attitudes towards New Housing. Monkkonen, Paavo, and Michael Manville. 2019. Journal of Urban Affairs, 41(8): 1123-1141.

Empty Houses across North America: Housing Finance and Mexico’s Vacancy Crisis. Monkkonen, Paavo. 2019. Urban Studies, 57(10): 2080-2097.

Where are property rights worth more? Assessing variation in the value of deeds across cities in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2016. World Development, 88: 67-78.

Do Strict Land Use Regulations make Metropolitan Areas more Segregated by Income? Michael Lens and Paavo Monkkonen. 2016. Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(1): 6-21.

Land Use Regulations and the Value of Land and Housing: An Intra-Metropolitan Analysis Kok, Nils, Paavo Monkkonen and John M. Quigley. 2014. Journal of Urban Economics, 81(3): 136–148.

Innovative Measurement of Spatial Segregation: Comparative Evidence from Hong Kong and San Francisco. Monkkonen, Paavo and Xiaohu Zhang. 2014. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 47(3): 99-11.

Land Use Regulations, Compliance, and Land Markets in Argentina Monkkonen, Paavo and Lucas Roconi. 2013. Urban Studies, 50(10): 1951-1969.

Housing Finance Reform and Increasing Socioeconomic Segregation in Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(4): 757-772.

Economic Restructuring, Urban Growth, and Short-term Trades: The Spatial Dynamics of the Hong Kong Housing Market, 1992-2008 Monkkonen, Paavo, Kelvin SK Wong, and Jaclene Begley. 2012. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(3): 396-406.

The Demand for Land Regularization: Theory and Evidence from Tijuana, Mexico Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. Urban Studies, 49(2): 270-287.

The Housing Transition in Mexico: Expanding Access to Housing Finance Monkkonen, Paavo. 2011. Urban Affairs Review, 47(5): 672-695.

Michael Storper

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I am an economic geographer and my research is about the geography of economic development. The world economy entered a new period around 1980, characterized by the main forces of technological change and globalization.  In this New Economy (now growing old), many patterns of economic development changed: the economy became more urban; people began returning to the inner parts of metropolitan areas; regional inequality increased in most countries; some regions gained in income and employment, others lost people or had declines in their economic success; inequalities between persons increased in many countries; successful people migrated to certain regions and left others; a major wave of globalization occurred, increasing the economic specialization of city-regions all over the world; this made some regions very multi-cultural, but not all; some city-regions were successful in this new economy, and others declined; development spread around the globe.

The economics of these inter-related changes are my main subject. In my different research projects, I address aspects of this big picture.

In one major recent project, I examined why cities and metropolitan regions grow and decline.  My latest big project on this subject was published in 2015 in a book entitled The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies: Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles (Stanford University Press).    I also published a closely-related theory book on how to understand divergent regional and urban development:  Keys to the City (Princeton University Press, 2013).

New technologies have altered the nature of employment and its geography radically in the past few decades: what kind of work we do, who does it, where it is done.  This is a principal reason for the changing geography of economic well-being.  There are winner and loser people and regions in this ongoing tumultuous change in our economies. The next wave of technological change will most likely be even more tumultuous, and it will reshuffle the cards of economic development once again.

The changes I have examined are now giving rise to very strong political reactions, in debates over trade and employment.  Much of this comes from the strong geographical differences in development I have studied over the years, with certain regions picking a return to national border and a rejection of globalization and multiculturalism, and others endorsing its continuation.   The split in development between successful and unsuccessful places makes it more urgent than ever to understand what can be done to spread prosperity to more places and more groups of people, and yet to continue the success of the places that are doing well.  This is a thorny problem for research and policy.   My research in the next few years will concentrate on the sources of unequal regional development and to understanding the politics and policy debates it generates.

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Beyond his core disciplinary skills in economic geography, his work on occasion draws on, and has links to, economics, sociology. and urban studies. Storper holds concurrent appointments in Europe, where he is Professor of Economic Sociology at the Institute of Political Studies (“Sciences Po”) in Paris, and a member of its research Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CS0), and at the London School of Economics, where he is Professor of Economic Geography.

Storper is currently completing a five-year research project on the divergent economic development of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area economies since 1970, which is the subject of his next book “The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies: Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles.” SFGate calls it “a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of California and cities more broadly.”

His Op-Ed Why San Francisco’s way of doing business beat Los Angeles’ was featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Storper received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2008. He was elected to the British Academy in 2012 and received the Regional Studies Association’s award for overall achievement as well as the Sir Peter Hall Award in the House of Commons in 2012.

In 2014 Storper was named one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” by Thomson Reuters.

 

RESEARCH AND BIOGRAPHICAL LINKS

Amazon Author Page

ResearchGate

 

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

The Economic Development Clubs of European Cities
Author: Michael Storper
Download file: PDF

The Neo-liberal City as Idea and Reality
Author: Michael Storper
Download file: PDF

Regional Innovation Transitions
Author: Michael Storper
Download file: PDF

Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment
Author: Michael Storper and Allen J Scott
Download file: PDF

RGS acceptance speech
Author: Michael Stroper
Download file: PDF

Economic Growth and Economic Development: Gepgraphic Dimensions, Definitions & Disparities
Author: Maryann Feldman and Michael Storper
Download file: PDF

The digital skin of cities: urban theory and research inthe age of the sensored and metered city, ubiquitouscomputing and big data
Author: Chirag Rabari and Michel Storper
Download file: PDF

The Rise and Decline of Urban Economies: Lessons from Los Angeles and San Francisco
Author: Michael Storper, Tom Kemeny, Naji Makarem and Taner Osman
Publisher: Stanford University Press, August 2015

Cohesion Policy in the European Union: Growth, Geography, Institutions
Author: Michael Storper, Thomas Farole, Andres Rodriguez-Pose
Download file: PDF

Governing the Large Metropolis
Author: Michael Storper
Download file: PDF

Is Specialization Good for Regional Economic Development?
Author: Michael Storper, Thomas Kemeny
Download file: PDF

The Nature of Cities: The Scope and Limits of Urban Theory
Author: Michael Storper, Allen J. Scott
Download file: PDF

Keys to the City: How economics, institutions, social interactions and politics affect regional development
2013 (June).  Princeton: Princeton University Press
Q&A

Speech accepting the Sir Peter Hall Award in the House of Commons, 2012
Download file: PDF

Book Review, Glaeser’s Triumph of the City
Author: Michael Storper
Journal of Economic Geography

Rising Trade Costs? Agglomeration and trade with endogenous transaction costs
2008. co- authored with Gilles Duranton. Canadian Journal of Economics 41,1: 292-319

Rethinking Human Capital, Creativity, and Urban Growth
2009  Co-authored with Allen J. Scott, Journal of Economic Geography :147-167, January

Why Does a City Grow? Specialization, Human Capital, or Institutions?
2010 Michael Storper,  Urban Studies v.47, 10: 2027-2050
Download file: PDF

Cohesion Policy in the European Union: Growth, Geography, Institutions
2011  TC Farole, A Rodriguez Pose, M. Storper, Journal of Common Market Studies 49,5: 1089-1111

Should Places Help One Another? Justice, Efficiency and Economic Geography
Author: Michael Storper. 2011  European Urban and Regional Studies 18,1: 3-21

The Sources of Urban Development: Wages, Housing and Amenity Gaps across American Cities
2012  Tom Kemeny and Michael Storper, Journal of Regional Science 52,1: 85-108

The Territorial Dynamics of Innovation in China and India
2012  Journal of Economic Geography, 12: 105-1085 (with Riccardo Crescenzi and Andres Rodriguez-Pose).

 

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).

V. Kelly Turner

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Kelly Turner (she/her) is an associate professor of urban planning and geography and serves as associate director of the Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI). She leads LCI’s research on heat which provides evidence-based approaches to protect people where they live, work and play.

Dr. Turner’s current research encompasses heat governance and policy, planning for heat resilient communities, and producing actionable data for heat preparedness. She directs the Center for Heat Resilient Communities, a National Integrated Heat Health Information Systems Center for excellence. Her work has been published in Nature, Environmental Research Letters, and the Journal of the American Planning Association and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, National Science Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has served as a panelist for the National Academy of Sciences and as a Science Advisor to the Arsht-Rockefeller Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance. She regularly appears on television, radio, and print media including CNN, NPR, and NBC.

She received a doctoral degree in geography from the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Wellesley College.

Recent Publications

Derakshan, S., Dialesandro, J., Turner, V.K., and Longcore, T. 2025. Space-time dynamics in hazard exposure analysis: smartphone locations show pedestrian routes are inflexible to extreme heat events. NPJ Natural Hazards: https://rdcu.be/d5Rst

Matthews, T., Ramsay, E., Saeed, F., Sherwood, S., Jay, O., Raymond, C., Abram, N., Kai Wei Lee, J., Barley, S., Kirkpatric, SP., Khan, MS., Meissner, K., Roberts, C., Mavalankar, D., Smith, KGC., Ullah, A., Sadad, A., Turner, V.K., Forrest, A. 2024. Humid heat exceeds human tolerance and causes mass mortality, Nature Climate Change, 15:4-6. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02215-8

Sullivan, A., White, D., and Turner, V.K. 2024. Framing uncertainty in water-policy discourse: Insights from Arizona’s Project ADD Water. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13412-023-00868-z

Turner, V.K., Middel, A., and Vanos, J. 2023. Shade is an essential solution to hotter cities. Nature, 619, 694-697. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02311-3

Engel, RA., Millard-Ball, A., and Turner, V.K. 2022. Contributions of Roads to Surface Temperature: Evidence from Southern California. Environmental Research Communications, 5: 015004 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/acabb8/meta

Turner, V.K., *French, E., Dialessandro, J., Hondula, D., Middel, A., BanWeiss, G., and *Abdelatty, H. How are Cities Planning for Heat? Analysis of United States municipal plans. 2022. Environmental Research Letters, 17: 064054 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac73a9

Turner, V.K., *Gmoser-Daskalakis, K., Costello, D., Jefferson, A., and Bhaskar, A. 2022. Champions and Traditional Technocrats: The Role of Environmental Value Orientation in Stormwater Management. in Journal of the American Water Resources Association special issue on Connecting Land and Water for Healthy Communities. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1752-1688.13015

Turner, V.K. 2022. The environmental consequences of residential land tenure in single family neighborhoods. Land Use Policy, 114:105959. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721006827

Turner, V.K., Rogers, M.*, Yujia, Z., Middel, A., Schneider, F.*, Ocón, J., Seeley, M.* Dialesandro, J. 2022. More Than Surface Temperature: Mitigating Thermal Exposure in Hyper-Local Land Systems. Journal of Land Use Science, 1:79-99. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1747423X.2021.2015003

Keith, L., Meerow, S., Hondula, DM., Turner, V.K., and Arnott, J. 2021. Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics. Nature, 598:29-31. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02677-2

Wang, C., Turner, V.K., Wentz, E.A., Myint, S.W. 2020. Optimization of Residential Green Spaces for Water Conservation and Heat Mitigation: A Case of Phoenix Metropolitan Area, Arizona. Science of the Total Environment, 763:144605.

Middel, A., Turner, V.K., Schneider, F.A.*, Zhang, Y., and Stiller, M.* 2020. Solar reflective pavements – A policy panacea to heat mitigation? Environmental Research Letters, 15: 064016.

Turner, V.K. and Stiller, M.* 2020. How do Homeowners Associations Regulate Residential Landscapes? An Analysis of Rule Structure and Content in Maricopa County, Arizona. Journal of the American Planning Association, 86(1):25-38.

 

Liz Koslov

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Liz Koslov is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, where she studies the social dimensions of climate change, questions of environmental and climate justice, and how cities are adapting to effects such as extreme weather and sea-level rise.

Recent publications include pieces on sociology and the climate crisis, flood maps, and the possibilities for collective climate adaptation amidst denial and public silence. Her current book project, Retreat: Moving to Higher Ground in a Climate-Changed City, offers an ethnographic account of “managed retreat” from the coast in New York City after Hurricane Sandy. Koslov’s research on this topic has been cited in outlets such as Scientific American,The New Yorker, and WWNO New Orleans Public Radio.

Prior to joining UCLA, Koslov was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at MIT.

Amada Armenta

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Amada Armenta’s research examines the connections between the immigration enforcement system and the criminal justice system, and the implications of this connection for immigrants, bureaucracies, and cities.

Her award-winning book, “Protect Serve and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement” (University of California Press, 2017), analyzes the role of local law enforcement agencies in immigration enforcement in Nashville, Tennessee. Currently, she is working on her second book project, an examination of the legal attitudes of unauthorized Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia.

Dr. Armenta’s research has been published in journals of sociology, law and society, and policy. She has received research funding from the American Sociological Association, the National Science Foundation, the American Society of Criminology, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Prior to joining Luskin as a faculty member, she was an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Walker Wells

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Walker Wells is Executive Director of Global Green USA, a national non-profit organization headquartered in Santa Monica.   He works with cities, neighborhoods, and community development organizations across the country to further green building and sustainable development practices through technical guidance, stakeholder facilitation, and development of innovative polices and programs.

Wells is a certified urban planner, a LEED Accredited Professional and a Green Rater. He served as an appointed member of the State of California Green Building Code Advisory Committee from 2010-2014, is and a lecturer in Green Urbanism at the Claremont Colleges and the UCLA Urban Planning Program.

Wells is a 2013 Fulbright Fellow with the Royal Institute of Technology Urban Planning Program in Stockholm, a 2012 Pritzker Fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and co-author of the 2007 book Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing.

Wells holds Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Environmental Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Master’s of City and Regional from the California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo. He studied at Lund University and the Lund PolyTechnic Institute School of Architecture in Sweden. Prior to joining Global Green Mr. Wells was a Senior Urban Designer with Gruen Associates in Los Angeles, a Planner with the City of Santa Monica, and an Urban Planner for the City of Malmo, Sweden.

Hannah King

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Hannah is a doctoral student of transportation planning at UCLA. Prior to coming to UCLA, she spent several years in sea level rise and economic development planning at the state of Florida. Her current research interests center on active transportation, GIS, and transportation financing. She is being advised by Dr. Brian Taylor.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahrking