Ladd Keith, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Planning, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
Director, Heat Resilience Initiative
Associate Research Professor, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy
Distinguished Scholar
University of Arizona
Ladd Keith, Ph.D., is a climate planner whose research focuses on heat planning, policy, and governance, helping communities, regions, and nations build heat resilience. He argues that our cities were built for a climate that no longer exists, and that we are living through a “heatshed moment” — a turning point at which extreme heat, already the deadliest weather hazard in the United States, must be addressed as urgently as any other climate risk.
He defined heat governance in a Nature comment, and co-authored Planning for Urban Heat Resilience, the American Planning Association’s first guidebook on heat for planning practitioners.
He has led and co-led heat research programs funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, NOAA, and the CDC, including the Center for Heat Resilient Communities and the Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory. Internationally, he serves on the management committee of the Global Heat Health Information Network, a joint initiative of the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.
At the University of Arizona, he founded the Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Built Environments and later expanded it fully online and at a campus in Peru. He served a full term on the City of Tucson’s Planning Commission, where he chaired the development and adoption of the city’s comprehensive plan. In 2025, he was named Western Planner of the Year and a University of Arizona Distinguished Scholar, and in 2026 received the inaugural University of Arizona Convergence Award for Excellence in Applied Research and Engineering.
A frequent commentator on extreme heat for national and international media, he delivered the TEDx talk “A Heatshed Moment for Communities in Crisis.” He writes Heatshed, a newsletter on how we plan for and govern extreme heat.
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