Home / V. Kelly Turner

Urban Planning

V. Kelly Turner

Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Geography

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.

Educational Background

Ph.D. in Geography, Arizona State University
B.A. in Political Science, Wellesley College

Areas of Expertise

Ecosystem Services, Environmental Design, Environmental Management, Institutions/Decision Making, Social-Ecological Systems, Urban Ecology, Urban Sustainability

Latest News

What does it mean to be too hot, a TEDxUCLA talk

August 27, 2026

In the Heat of the Moment, Shade Is a Secret Weapon

July 23, 2026

UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation scholars are among scientists across campus who are helping mitigate the dangers of increasing temperatures.

Latest News

What does it mean to be too hot, a TEDxUCLA talk

August 27, 2026

In the Heat of the Moment, Shade Is a Secret Weapon

July 23, 2026

UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation scholars are among scientists across campus who are helping mitigate the dangers of increasing temperatures.

Turner on the L.A. County Department of Public Health’s New Tracker

June 17, 2026

L.A. County launches heat illness tracker as UCLA’s Kelly Turner highlights social inequality driving unequal heat-related health risks.

Turner on Addressing Poor Mental Health Outcomes of Black and Latino Boys

June 15, 2026

Social welfare professor David C. Turner III argues that more needs to be done to address the structural issues impacting the mental health outcomes of Black and Latino boys

Turner Weighs In on the Approaching Summer Heat

April 10, 2026

As temperatures reach record-breaking highs on the West Coast, experts from UCLA shared their concerns about the changing climate.

Contact Information

vkturner@ucla.edu

Office Location

5369, Public Affairs

Media Contact

For media inquiries, contact Kate Shirley at kshirley@luskin.ucla.edu (email preferred) or 310-206-5252.

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