Edith de Guzman
Water Equity and Adaptation Policy Cooperative Extension Specialist
Edith de Guzman (she/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher, practitioner, educator, and consultant working with diverse audiences to understand and address the impacts of climate change in under-represented communities.
Her work investigates best practices on water management, climate adaptation, heat mitigation, and urban forestry for the sustainable transformation of the Los Angeles region and beyond. Edith’s research, demonstration projects, and recommendations are made through the lenses of urban planning, public health, behavioral sciences, biophysical sciences, and public policy.
From 2014 to 2020, Edith served as Director of Research at TreePeople. Her projects included: City of Los Angeles Stormwater Capture Master Plan; facilitating the creation of a Greening Plan with the communities of Inglewood and Lennox; gleaning lessons for California from Australia’s response to its historic Millennium Drought; and producing the first interactive, high-resolution public map and spatial analysis of Los Angeles County’s urban forest.
Edith also co-founded and directs the Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative, a multisectoral partnership working to alleviate the public health risks of extreme heat. Their research has found that one in four lives currently lost to extreme heat could be saved if LA had more trees and its infrastructure were more reflective, particularly where low-income communities and communities of color live and work.
In 2023, Edith concluded her Ph.D. studies at the UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability. For her dissertation, she conducted three applied, interdisciplinary studies on climate adaptation and climate health equity using community-based methods. She earned a master’s in urban planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in history and art history, also from UCLA.
When not working or studying, Edith can be found hiking, playing guitar, or creating art exhibitions that explore the human connection to the environment.
Learn more: See the news story announcing Edith’s new position.
In the News
Growing Shade Equity, One Tree at a Time (Union of Concerned Scientists)
LA Has Big Plans To Turn A Landfill Into A Wetland, But Delays Are Jeopardizing The Project (LAist)
How You Can Help Refill LA’s Aquifers By Capturing Stormwater At Home (BNN)
How California’s storms are projected to become more extreme with climate change (LA Times)Â
UCLA grads create simple, effective solution to tackle extreme heat in urban areas (Spectrum 1 News)Â
As Extreme Heat Increases, Heart Attacks Will Rise (Wired)
This Is Your Kid’s Brain on Extreme Heat (Wired)
Heat Waves Aren’t Just Getting Hotter—They’re Stickier Too (Wired)
For Californians who live and work outside, there is little escape from deadly heat (LA Times)
How are cities responding to extreme heat? (Al Jazeera)
‘He baked’: Heat waves are killing more L.A. homeless people who can’t escape broiling sun (LA Times)
Texas’ Precarious Power Grid Exposes a Nasty Feedback Loop (Wired)
Extreme heat is a disease for cities. Treat it that way (Wired)
Recent publications
Evaluating the impact of trees on residential thermal conditions in Los Angeles using community science (2023 article in Cities and the Environment)
Rx for Hot Cities 2: Reducing Heat and ER Visits With Trees and High-albedo Surfaces in Los Angeles (2023 TreePeople & Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative report)
Cooler and healthier: Increasing tree stewardship and reducing heat-health risk using community-based urban forestry (2023 article in Sustainability)
A socio-ecological approach to align tree stewardship programs with public health benefits in marginalized neighborhoods in Los Angeles, USA (2022 article in Frontiers in Sustainable Cities)
Increasing trees and high-albedo surfaces decreases heat impacts and mortality in Los Angeles, CA (2022 article in International Journal of Biometeorology)