Blog

NBC LX interview on Chief Heat Officers

Live interview with NBC LX's Jobeth Devera.

I spoke with NBC LX host Jobeth Devera on the creation of Los Angeles’s Chief Heat Officer position, approved by the city mayor and council earlier in November. Los Angeles is now the third city in the U.S. to create such a position in 2021, following Miami-Dade County appointing its Chief Heat Officer in the… Continue reading NBC LX interview on Chief Heat Officers

Nature: Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics

I am thrilled to have a new Comment piece on heat governance, Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics, published in Nature with coauthors Sara Meerow, David M. Hondula, V. Kelly Turner, and James C. Arnott. “Heat is an outlier hazard — invisible, frequently chronic and subtly pervasive. Unlike for flooding or wildfire, no single organization… Continue reading Nature: Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics

Extreme Heat at Outdoor COVID-19 Sites

FLIR thermal image at the UArizona POD. Thermal image showing temperature differentials with the colder evaporative coolers on the left (purple) and the hotter vehicles on the right (yellow).

Final paper of my Extreme Heat at Outdoor COVID-19 Vaccination Sites research with Nicole Iroz-Elardo, Erika Austhof, Ida Sami, and Mona Arora is now available! The project began by invitation from the site operators who were very responsive in using the recommendations. It was an honor to work on this project with my colleagues to… Continue reading Extreme Heat at Outdoor COVID-19 Sites

Come Rain or Shine Podcast: Extreme Heat and Urban Planning

I joined Dave Hondula, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Arizona State University and Lisa LaRocque, Sustainability Officer at the City of Las Cruces, New Mexico, for a discussion on extreme heat and urban planning on the Come Rain or Shine Podcast. We discussed the urban heat island effect, how cities across the U.S. and in the Southwest are… Continue reading Come Rain or Shine Podcast: Extreme Heat and Urban Planning

Op-Ed: There’s no place in the US safe from the heat

June 2021 was the hottest June on record for the U.S. Source: Climate.gov

I had the opportunity to author an op-ed for The Hill with my colleague Andrea K. Gerlack, Professor of Geography, on the need for addressing heat as a national climate risk: Over the past year, our coverage of heat equity has focused mainly on the inequitable distribution of heat severity in the urban heat island… Continue reading Op-Ed: There’s no place in the US safe from the heat