Gregory Pierce

Greg Pierce 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. 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.