Zach Wampler (he/him) is a project coordinator of heat research engagement and a program coordinator for the NOAA-funded Center for Heat Resilient Communities housed at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation. As a liaison between participating communities and Center stakeholders, Zach will develop and implement systems to recruit and support these communities, including tracking their technical assistance needs, progress, and outcomes.

He took on this role after holding positions in local and regional government focused on heat-specific community education, engagement, and research-informed, heat-resilient land use policy. Trained in organizational psychology, Zach is interested in the research-policy interface.

As an undergraduate student, he developed community-facing data and information tools for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County and studied the role of metrics — particularly geospatial representations of social vulnerability — in policy. After graduation, he completed an AmeriCorps service term with the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District where he helped develop a regional coalition of local governments interested in using the MaRTy tool to evaluate the effectiveness of reflective surfaces and other land use interventions in reducing heat burden for residents.

Zach earned a B.S. in human and organizational development from Vanderbilt University in 2023. He plans to pursue further education in urban planning, geography, or environmental policy.

To learn more about Zach, click here.