About Us

RICHARD MATTHEW, DIRECTOR

Richard A. Matthew (BA McGill; PhD Princeton) is a professor of urban planning and public policy. He also is the inaugural director of the Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation (http://blumcenter.uci.edu/); a senior fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development; a member of the United Nations Expert Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding; a member of International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Commission on Environment, Economic and Social Policy and co-chair of its Task Force on Conservation, Migration and Conflict; and vice president of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (https://environmentalpeacebuilding.org). His research explores violent conflict, displacement and public health challenges at the intersection of environmental change and poverty. (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RBU0xkYAAAAJ&hl=en).

MAURA ALLAIRE

Maura Allaire is an assistant professor of urban planning and public policy. With expertise in water economics and spatial statistics, her research focuses on assessing equity in drinking water quality, decision support for water management, and community resilience to extreme events. Her professional experience spans the public and private sectors, including international organizations (World Bank, Fulbright Scholar Program), think tanks (Resources for the Future, International Water Management Institute), and environmental consulting (AMEC). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. She runs the Water Equity Lab at UCI.

DAVID FELDMAN

David Feldman (B.A., Kent State University; M.A. and Ph.D., University of Missouri) is professor of urban planning & public policy and political science. He serves as director of the Masters of Public Policy program and of Water UCI, where he oversees projects on California’s Water Resilience portfolio, contaminants of emerging concern in Southern California, a Smart Water Data Exchange project to help water agencies in the region and beyond in improving planning and operation of water infrastructure (funded by NSF), and PEER2PEER — a collaborative that seeks to improve transboundary water security and science diplomacy (also funded by NSF). Feldman served as lead author for a U.S. Climate Change Science Program report on climate and water and was co-Principal Investigator on an NSF-Partnerships for International Research and Education project with Australian universities on water reuse. Feldman has also collaborated on research projects in Israel and the European Union and is the author/co-author of nearly 100 articles and book chapters and 10 books. https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/feldman/

JESSICA GARRISON

Jessica Garrison is an assistant professor of teaching in the Departmet of Urban Planning and Public Policy. Her research combines quantitative, qualitative, and spatial methods to analyze how climate change, historical inequality, and on-going social change interact to shape the possibilities for environmental justice. Her recent projects examine how a history of parks inequality shapes LA and New York’s ability to adapt underserved neighborhoods to heat waves via urban forestry, and how climate change and the suburbanization of poverty and immigration are redistributing wildfire vulnerability in Southern California. Her work has been published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of the American Planning Association, Nature Climate Change, Environment and Planning, and Cities, as well as a new Routledge reader, Planning for Climate Change. She has taught urban planning, research design, geographic information systems, sustainability, and climate action planning at UCI, UCSD, and MIT, and served as Program Director of the UCI Sustainability Initiative and Director of UCI “Campus as a Living Lab.”

DOUGLAS HOUSTON

Douglas Houston is an associate professor of urban planning and public policy. His research investigates how urban development patterns intersect with neighborhood livability and environmental quality. His scholarship contributes to several literatures – transportation and environmental planning, hazards analysis, public health, and geography – and expands each by helping explain how places and policies influence people, behavior, and community health. His research contributes to several areas of environmental planning scholarship by examining the distribution of urban environmental hazards and evaluating strategies to mitigate their negative impacts. His work integrates several research methodologies including survey-based cognitive mapping to understand spatial dimensions of risk perception and mobile tracking and spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems to examine environmental disparities and injustice, time-activity and air pollution exposure monitoring in low SES communities of color, and sustainable planning for transit corridors. He received a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his research has received support from the California Air Resources Board, the California Department of Transportation, the California Endowment, the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies, and the National Science Foundation.

JAE HONG KIM

Jae Hong Kim is an associate professor of urban planning and public policy. His research attempts to uncover the multi-dimensional, scale-dependent, and context-specific nature of urban development and transformation processes by investigating changes in land use (and the built environment), socio-economic restructuring, and their interconnections.  His scholarly work also pays attention to how urban development/transformation dynamics are constantly reshaped by market forces and planning/policy interventions at various levels and explores new ways to create more sustainable and inclusive communities. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his research projects have been supported by the National Science Foundation, the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies, the UCI Metropolitan Futures Initiative, and other organizations. https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/jaehongkim/

MUKUL KUMAR

Mukul Kumar is an assistant professor of urban planning and public policy. He is a geographer whose research and teaching focuses on the political ecology of energy transitions by analyzing the intersections of urbanization, development, land politics, and environmental justice. Kumar’s research projects examine how the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy can address past harms and lead to just and equitable futures. Kumar received his Ph.D.  in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley and his MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.  His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council and UC Humanities Research Institute. Prior to joining UC Irvine, Kumar was a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow.  https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/mukulk/

NICHOLAS J. MARANTZ

Nicholas J. Marantz is an associate professor of urban planning and public policy. With expertise in land use law, environmental regulation, and housing and transportation policy, his research empirically analyzes the connection between on land use regulation and socioeconomic disparities, connecting legal theory with spatial and quantitative analysis. His research has been funded by a variety of organizations including the National Science Foundation, the California Air Resources Board, and the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/marantz/ 

AVIPSA ROY

Avipsa Roy is an assistant professor of urban planning and public policy. With expertise in sustainable transportation planning, big data analytics and spatial statistics, her research focuses on examining barriers to active transportation (bicycling/walking) among socially disadvantaged communities using crowdsourced big data, understanding the role of built environment (i.e. green spaces, housing density, walkability) in transportation usage in urban areas and assessing equitable access to clean transportation such as electric vehicles across Southern California. Her professional experience spans the public and private sectors, including the industry (IBM Research and Development), national laboratories (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and regional planning associations (Maricopa Association of Governments). She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the Arizona State University and a Masters degree in Geoinformatics from the University of Muenster, Germany. She currently runs the Spatio-Temporal Data Science Lab (https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/avipsaroy) at UCI.

NICOLA ULIBARRI

Nícola Ulibarrí is an assistant professor of urban planning and public policy. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of environmental policy, governance, and management. Her research focuses on ways to optimize environmental decision-making processes to result in better environmental and social outcomes. Her research group studies diverse socio-environmental contexts, from licensing hydropower dams, to managing coastal systems, to remediating nuclear waste. A multi-generational nuevo mexicana, Dr. Ulibarrí grew up in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of rural northern New Mexico, where the abundance or scarcity of water is a predominant force shaping the culture, economy, and environment. She earned her PhD through the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment & Resources at Stanford University, and spent a year as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University.  (https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/ulibarri/) 

MICHAEL MÉNDEZ

Michael Méndez is an assistant professor of urban planning and public policy, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He previously was the inaugural James and Mary Pinchot Faculty Fellow in Sustainability Studies and associate research scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. Méndez has more than a decade of senior-level experience in the public and private sectors, where he consulted and actively engaged in the policymaking process. This included working for the California State Legislature as a senior consultant, lobbyist, a member of the California State Mining & Geology Board, and as vice-chair of the Sacramento City Planning Commission. In 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Méndez to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. The board regulates water quality in a region of 11 million people.

AJAY GARDE

Ajay Garde (Ph.D. University of Southern California), is associate professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy. His scholarship focuses on spatial, social, and environmental problems with the objective of improving the sustainability and livability of cities. His current research is on zoning reform underway in the United States. In his recent publications, he has analyzed new rules of development adopted by cities to discuss their policy implications with a particular focus on housing affordability and sustainability. He also has collaborated with faculty from USC to examine the barriers and opportunities for addressing the access, mobility, and shelter needs of disadvantaged populations in transit-oriented developments in Southern California. He was a senior architect in New Delhi, India, where he worked on several large-scale urban planning and design projects. His research is supported by grants and fellowships from the Haynes Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, the California Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/agarde/publications/

WALTER NICHOLLS

Walter Nicholls is professor and chair of urban planning and public policy.