Gregory Pierce
Greg Pierce (he/him) is the co-director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab within the center. He is also the co-director of the UCLA Water Resources Group within the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the department of urban planning. He is a faculty affiliate of the Lewis Center for Regional Studies and Institute of Transportation Studies in the Luskin School, and Center for Healthy Climate Solutions in the Fielding School of Public Health.
Dr. Pierce’s research, teaching and service is 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 25+ 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 41 peer-reviewed articles, including many in the leading journals in urban studies, infrastructure planning and policy and environmental health, as well as 14 major Luskin Center for Innovation reports. He has also reviewed articles for 50+ journals, several funding agencies and many collaborating researchers. Greg 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.
In the News
Drinking Water in LA County (People Places Planet Podcast)
Around 2 Billion People Don’t Have Access to Clean Drinking Water (New Scientist)
Los Angeles DWP to End Water and Power Shutoffs for Low-Income Customers Who Can’t Pay (Los Angeles Times)
What California’s Next Desalination Plant Means for the Future of Water in the Southwest (KJZZ)
California Votes Not to Tax the Rich to Pay for Electric Cars and Wildfire-Fighting Funding (Vice)
California Ballot Measure to Tax the Rich to Fight Climate Change Became About Lyft (Vice)
Fact Check: False Claim Earth Can Produce Infinite Supply of Clean Water (USA Today)
Drowning in High Water Bills? Federal Cash Arrives for San Diegans as Shutoffs Resume (San Diego Union Tribune)
As Drought Drives Prices Higher, Millions of Californians Struggle to Pay for Water (Los Angeles Times)
Desalinating Seawater Sounds Easy, But There are Cheaper and More Sustainable Ways to Meet People’s Water Needs (The Conversation, Undark Magazine, Singularity Hub, Big Think, and more)
Diving In: Who Has Clean Water in the United States, with Gregory Pierce (RFF’s Resources Radio)
Dirty water, drying wells: Central Californians shoulder drought’s inequities (Los Angeles Times)
Help paying water bills may be on way for low-income Californians (CalMatters)
Big hurdles on the road to moving millions of U.S. drivers into EVs (Washington Post)
Column: Beneath parched L.A. is a sea of water. But can it quench our thirst? (Los Angeles Times)
