Colleen Callahan (she/her) is executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. She previously served as founding deputy director. As such, she has played an integral part in building the Center into a powerhouse that informs effective and equitable environmental policy. Collaborating with colleagues and civic partners, Colleen helps ensure that the Center’s actionable research engages with policymakers and communities to advance environmental solutions that improve lives. She spends much of her time strategizing, partnering, amplifying the team’s work, and leading or supporting research projects, communications, events, and more.

She has launched several initiatives that connect researchers with civic partners, including the Center’s Environmental Justice Field Fellowship Program. She has also facilitated many research endeavors, particularly in the Luskin Center for Innovation’s Climate Research Area. For example, through collaborative processes, she helped guide the framework for California Climate Investments in disadvantaged communities and then facilitated evaluations of some of the state’s most equity-oriented climate action programs. In a recent project with movement leaders, she applied learnings from state experiences across the U.S. to advise the federal government in their climate and clean energy investments to advance goals of racial, environmental and economic justice.

Colleen has 20 years of experience in social entrepreneurship, environmental policy, and urban planning. Previously, she directed UCLA’s Leaders in Sustainability (LiS) Graduate Certificate Program, which benefits 100 graduate students annually from 20-plus disciplines across campus. Before coming to UCLA, she co-founded the Los Angeles Sustainability Collaborative, which has since folded into LiS, and established the L.A. office of the American Lung Association, later serving as their local lead on clean air policy campaigns.

She is a Switzer Environmental Fellow, recipient of the Neville Parker Award from the U.S. Council of University Transportation Centers, and co-recipient of national awards from the American Planning Association. She holds a M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA and a B.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Occidental College, Phi Beta Kappa.