Greg Pierce (he/him) is the senior director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab. He serves as an associate professor in Residence in the Department of Urban Planning, and is a faculty affiliate of the Lewis Center for Regional Studies, the Institute of Transportation Studies, and the Center for Healthy Climate Solutions. Dr. Pierce is also the director of the UCLA Water Resources Group within the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Dr. Pierce’s research, teaching, and service are motivated by persistent inequities in access to the essential environmental services that we need to survive and thrive. He examines how infrastructure planning and policy efforts either perpetuate or address service inequities, and demonstrates how communities strategically cope with and overcome inequities. His primary focus is on water insecurity, but he also examines solutions to cross-cutting green infrastructure, climate resilience, and transport insecurities.

He has secured 40+ extramural research funding awards as a principal investigator at the Center. Current and past sponsors of this work include the California State Water Resources Control Board, the California Air Resources Board, the Strategic Growth Council, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, WaterAid, the Water Foundation, The Resources Legacy Fund, the World Bank, the UC Multicampus Research Initiative, the UC Institute of Transportation Studies and the UCLA Grand Challenge, LADWP and Los Angeles County.

Greg is an author or co-author of 50+ peer-reviewed articles, including many in the leading journals in urban studies, infrastructure planning and policy, and environmental health, as well as 20+ major Luskin Center for Innovation reports. He has also reviewed articles for 50+ journals, several funding agencies, and many collaborating researchers. Greg’s work regularly appears on television, radio, and print media, including The New York Times, Associated Press, BBC, USA Today, The Washington Post, NPR, and Los Angeles Times. He received a Ph.D. in urban planning in 2015 and an M.A. in urban planning in 2011, both from UCLA. For more information regarding his peer-reviewed research, see here. For Greg’s full CV, see here.