gpierce@luskin.ucla.edu

(310) 267-5435

Gregory Pierce

Senior Director
Director, Human Right to Water Solutions Lab

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.

CURRENT PROJECT(S)

As water and wastewater utilities strive to find a way to balance infrastructure investments, asset management, workforce development, and climate change impacts, they must seek ways to increase operational efficiency and cut costs. This project seeks to establish a firm understanding of existing utility governance structures and the impacts they have on utility decision-making.

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Researcher(s): Greg Pierce
Funder: The Water Research Foundation

We are supporting public engagement and understanding of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment’s joint, city-wide flagship water recycling program, Pure Water Los Angeles. The team is analyzing its equity implications, including tap water trust and affordability, and establishing a long-term framework for equitable water access across the city.

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Researcher(s): Greg Pierce and Alice Chen
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

We are partnering with three communities across the City of Los Angeles (communities in South LA, Wilmington/surrounding areas, and Pacoima/surrounding areas) to improve procedural equity for electric vehicle adoption and charging station siting decisions in disadvantaged communities. We are conducting a three-workshop series in each community, aiming to elicit community perspectives and priorities with respect to public charging station deployment, and ultimately co-design a public charging station siting framework that maximizes community benefits. This project is part of a larger effort that is a partnership with several other UCLA research teams and California State University, Northridge.

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Researcher(s): Yifang Zhu, Greg Pierce, Rachel Connolly, and partners from Redeemer Community Partnership, Coalition for a Safe Environment, and Pacoima Beautiful
Funder: UC Office of the President

The Luskin Center for Innovation is partnering with Redeemer Community Partnership to lay the groundwork for residential gas decommissioning in and around the Exposition Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. The project is part of Justice First: an international collaboration in which academic researchers and community-based organizations have joined together to develop hyperlocal, community-led energy transition plans. The project includes a comparison across project sites to identify commonalities and differences among locally grounded energy transition efforts globally. The team is examining how neighborhood-scale gas decommissioning might help South LA communities address the risk of rising gas distribution costs, while supporting residential electrification, integrating equity and justice principles, and building community capacity.

Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Lauren Dunlap, Richard Parks, and Sooji Yang
Funder: Justice First project / New Frontiers in Research Fund – International

Chaired by Greg Pierce, the Urban Water Supply + Fire working group of the Climate & Wildfire Research Initiative will form a Research and Policy Coordination Network and facilitate workshops on the following topics:

  1. Strengthening drinking water infrastructure resilience,
  2. Addressing equity in the cost of new resilience investments,
  3. Ensuring water quality and community trust after fires, and
  4. Navigating the relationships among wildfire risk, vegetation, and water supply in urban areas.

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Researcher(s): Greg Pierce
Funder: Climate & Wildfire Research Initiative

The fires destroyed over 15,000 structures, leaving behind toxic ash and debris. Heavy rain in February washed contaminated materials beyond the burn zones, increasing exposure risks. In collaboration with Associate Professor Sanjay Mohanty, Greg Pierce is assessing contamination from toxic ash and debris in public areas within and beyond the burn perimeters of the Palisades and Eaton Fires. After collecting soil samples, the team will analyze them for heavy metals such as lead, chromium, arsenic, and lithium as well as organic pollutants including PFAS and VOCs. The findings will help determine if the removal of the top six inches of soil is sufficient to reduce health risks.

Researcher(s): Sanjay Mohanty and Greg Pierce

The researchers aim to address the persistent issue of unsafe and unreliable drinking water across the U.S. by focusing on the widespread fragmentation of community water systems. They will build a scalable, data-driven model that estimates feasible compliance solutions – either treatment upgrades or system consolidation – and associated capital costs for systems violating drinking water standards.

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Researcher(s): Khalid Osman, Greg Pierce, Grace Harrison, and collaborators
Funder: Stanford University

In partnership with Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, Rachel Connolly and her colleagues aim to address community concerns about air and water quality following the January 2025 fires. The researchers will center community perspectives to collect information about how residents perceived personal environmental risks before, during, and after the fires, including their trust in public information sources. Ultimately, the project seeks to advance environmental justice by supporting community-led efforts to build resilience during climate-driven crises.

Researcher(s): Rachel Connolly, Gregory Pierce, Megan Mullin, and Silvia R. González
Funder: UCLA Center for Community Engagement (Social Impact Collaboratives) and The Water Foundation

No one knows exactly how many of the 100,000 miles of sewer lines and 900+ utility providers and treatment plants in California provide adequate service, yet. We are conducting a first-of-its-kind study to answer this question and advance equitable sanitation services.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Grace Harrison, Jean Claude Iradukunda, Anna Young, and Max McNally
Funder: California State Water Resources Control Board

This project seeks to understand the economic impacts of reduced water availability (due to urban conservation) on recycled water and wastewater systems in California. The multi-university team is forecasting water demand and efficiency trends, evaluating links between urban water supply and wastewater systems, identifying potential impacts to recycled water production, and assessing impacts on affordability for systems across the state.

Researcher(s): Greg Pierce, Grace Harrison, Erik Porse, Rachel Shellabarger
Funder: California Department of Water Resources

Led by Rural Community Assistance Partnership Incorporated, the Luskin Center for Innovation, and partners are conducting six assessments for drinking water quality/compliance in five states and one US territory over the next four years. This report will enable state officials and water system managers to identify solutions and access federal funding for much-needed water quality improvements.

Researcher(s): Grace Harrison, Gregory Pierce, Lena Schlichting, Laura Landes, Steve Wilson, Hideyuki Terashima, and others
Funder: National Environmental Finance Center

Led by the Pacific Institute, the Luskin Center for Innovation, the University of North Carolina Environmental Finance Center, and Corvias Infrastructure Solutions are researching emerging approaches employed by utilities implementing affordable water programs for low-income customers.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce and Grace Harrison
Funder: Water Research Foundation

This new engaged research builds on the Luskin Center for Innovation’s past clean energy affordability recommendations for the LA Department of Water and Power.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, Lauren Dunlap, Dan Coffee, Stephanie Pincetl, and Rachel Sheinberg
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

PUBLICATIONS

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Apr 2026
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Apr 2026
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Apr 2026
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Apr 2026
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