Arushi is a fourth-year undergraduate at UCLA, majoring in Environmental Science and double minoring in Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences and Mathematics. As a lover of math, a meticulous programmer, and a research and development enthusiast, Arushi tells the story of two worlds — data and the environment — in the various projects that she is involved in, which range from building UCLA’s first automated hydroponics system to working on a mission proposal for a new satellite, ENTICE. Beyond classes, work, and research, Arushi undertakes arduous camping and backpacking trips and drags many of her friends along for the experience. They often admit that Arushi’s energy, enthusiasm, and optimism make her fit for a side job as a wilderness explorer who brings together people from drastically different walks of life and advocates for the great outdoors. At the core of Arushi’s dream career is a mission-based work ethic that helps corporations and governments achieve ambitious sustainability and energy goals. She hopes to continue working at the confluence of data and the environment where she can find patterns, influence decision-making, and ultimately have an impact on what the future will look like.
Alice Blackorby
Alice Blackorby is a third year economics student double minoring in environmental systems and society and public affairs. She is particularly interested in the intersection between sustainability, business, and public policy. Through the Corporate Partners Program Alice will be investigating different aspects along the supply chain of renewable energy technologies. Last year she worked in the Luskin Center for Innovation quantifying the significance of the barrier of living in an apartment or condominium in Los Angeles to electric vehicle adoption. At UCLA outside of class she does fundraising for FEM newsmagazine, and participates in EARTH within the Student Wellness Commission, promoting the intersection between environmental health and student health and wellbeing on UCLA’s campus. She enjoys hiking, reading, and spending time with friends and family in her free time!
Morgan Tingley
Morgan Tingley’s research addresses both fundamental and applied ecological questions of how species respond to large-scale, and predominantly anthropogenic, changes to their environments, particularly the effects of climate change, including fire, on bird communities. He has extensive experience in temperate mountain systems, focusing primarily on California’s Sierra Nevada.
Tingley joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2020, after previously serving as an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut and as a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow at Princeton University. He is an elected fellow of the American Ornithological Society and a research associate with the Institute for Bird Populations. He is a recipient of the “Wings across the Americas” conservation award from the U.S. Forest Service, and the Young Professional Award from the Cooper Ornithological Society. His research papers have been covered widely by the popular press, including features by The New York Times, LA Times, and The Washington Post.
Tingley received his B.A. in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University in 2003, an M.Sc. in Zoology with a focus on Integrative Bioscience from Oxford University in 2004, and his Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from University of California, Berkeley in 2011.
Claire Hirashiki
Claire Hirashiki conducts research in Dr. Peter Kareiva’s lab at the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. Her study interests include conservation biology, social justice, and environmental education. She specializes in data analytics, with an emphasis on geospatial information systems. Previously, Claire worked at the California Center for Sustainable Communities to help manage the UCLA Energy Atlas, a “big data” relational database of building energy consumption and sociodemographic characteristics in Southern California. She contributed to the development of the Los Angeles County Sustainability Plan, and she created the Water Hub, a platform of interactive geospatial visualizations depicting urban water management in Los Angeles.
Outside of UCLA, she took on the role of aquatic biotechnician at the Mountains Restoration Trust to monitor water quality and restore disturbed stream habitats. At the City of Los Angeles, she worked as a project assistant to facilitate the implementation of an urban tree planting program. She also freelances as a web designer and qualitative analyst.
Claire graduated from UCLA in 2015 with a B.S. in Environmental Science and a double minor in Environmental Engineering and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) and Technologies.
David P. Eisenman
David Eisenman, MD, MSHS, is a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and has a joint appointment at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health where he directs the Center for Public Health and Disasters. Dr. Eisenman is also an Associate Natural Scientist at RAND. Dr. Eisenman lives and surfs in Marina del Rey, California.
Research Interests
Dr. Eisenman’s primary research interests are in community resilience to disasters, climate change and health, and trauma mental health. He is currently studying the interactions of social and built-environment predictors of heatwave mortality and morbidity, the mortality associated with winter-time extreme heat in Los Angeles, organizational networks in disasters, behavioral responses to wireless emergency alerts, climate change policy in public health, social cohesion and health, wildfires and mental health, and improving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in public safety-net clinics. Through his appointment as Preparedness Science Officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, he is a lead scientist on the Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience Project (LACCDR). LACCDR is a county-wide, neighborhood-based initiative to improve community-level resilience to disasters. Resources and publications from this project are available online at www.laresilience.org. Further details on his research and publications are available online at www.cphd.ucla.edu.
Dr. Eisenman brings expertise in public health, disaster preparedness, and community resilience to the IoES, where his work includes research on how urban heat mitigation through land cover changes can improve health outcomes, particularly for low-income communities of color. Dr. Eisenman is currently serving as co-advisor to PhD student Edith de Guzman.
Di Chen
Di’s current research is primarily focused on understanding hydrologic extremes and their future changes. Large spread in model-simulated extreme rainfall are seen across generations of global climate models. Toward a better understanding of hydrological extremes and narrowing the uncertainties in model projections, Di seeks to leverage observations and global climate models, developing emergent constraints that connect current and future hydroclimate variability and changes. She has worked with multiple observational datasets, conducted numerical experiments using the Community Earth System Model, and analyzed output of CMIP5 and CMIP6 models.
Di joined our group since September 2019 after obtaining her PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from University of Albany, State University of New York. Her graduate research centered on understanding precipitation characteristics, including frequency, intensity, duration and diurnal cycle.
Stefan Rahimi
Stefan’s prime interests are synoptic and mesoscale dynamic meteorology, but his passion is people. Growing up in central Oklahoma, he obtained both his BS and MS in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma. He has always been extremely interested in tornadoes, so it was a thrill for him to be able to study flows around simulated tornadoes for his Master’s research. On the side, Stefan successfully chased tornadoes, too, intercepting between 35–50.
Following the completion of his MS, Stefan earned his PhD at the University of Wyoming, where he conducted both regional and global climate model simulations to quantify the impacts of light-absorbing aerosols on the general circulation of the atmosphere, water resources, and the surface energy budget. Stefan made use of his passion for synoptic dynamic meteorology by applying fundamental concepts of quasigeostrophic theory into his analyses of aerosol-climate interactions.
In a process referred to as dynamical downscaling, Stefan is currently making use of global climate model output to drive high-resolution future Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulations out to the year 2100. The overarching goal of this collaborative work is to quantify how atmospheric conditions favorable for California wildfires will change in a changing climate. Stefan also uses WRF coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) to study river basin ozone production across Wyoming, aerosol-cloud interactions off the California coast, and dust across central Asia at convective permitting scales.
With his passion being people, Stefan studies these atmospheric puzzles not based purely out of scientific interest, but also out of a sincere desire to energize communities about the need to mitigate climate change for the common good.
Rachel Blakey
Rachel is an Assistant Professor at Cal Poly Pomona teaching Biological Sciences. As a La Kretz Center Postdoctoral Fellow, Racheal worked with Dan Blumstein and Seth Riley on the effects of fire on mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Rachel’s past research has focused on how disturbance patterns influence the movement, food webs and community assembly of highly mobile predators (bats, owls, raptors) in regions prone to fire and drought. After completing her PhD at University of New South Wales, Australia, she has worked with University of Idaho, University of Missouri and The Institute for Bird Populations.
Rae Spriggs
Rae Spriggs is an environmental health scientist and climate and equity advocate from San Diego. Her passions for climate justice and vulnerable communities like her own have guided her work and research experience. She was previously a Climate and Equity Researcher at The Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego where she built a dataset of regional climate and equity indicators that were used to inform the San Diego Regional Quality of Life Dashboard, and where she also led internal DEI efforts including the development of a framework and training curriculum. Prior to this, she helped lead the climate change and health equity efforts at the County of San Diego where she researched statewide and national best practices and drafted both a preliminary Climate and Health framework and policy for the region.
While earning her MPH at UCLA, she researched Health Impact Assessments (HIA). These are evidence-based tools used to inform stakeholders and decision makers about the potential impacts of proposed policies and projects and identify ways to maximize the health benefits and minimize harm. She assessed the 96 transportation-related HIAs conducted recently in the United States to evaluate how they operationalized health equity, a core principle of HIA. This research has been personally meaningful to her given her background. She grew up directly next to a major freeway in San Diego, and was diagnosed with asthma at the age of three. In undergrad, she learned that the natural and built environments have significant impacts on our physical health and well-being, and that knowledge has fueled her work since.
She served as the Associate Director of CDLS for over 3 years where she helped to build, fund, and advance programs and partnerships related to environmental and climate justice. She is now the Manager of Climate Action Research with the Luskin Center for Innovation in the Luskin School of Public Affairs.
Devin Gross
Prior to Anderson, Devin worked as a sales engineer for Siemens Industry, providing clients with software solutions to their most pressing operational challenges. Throughout his time at Siemens, Devin worked with clients across a wide range of industries, including pharmaceutical, utilities, brewing/distilling, chemical, pulp and paper, and biofuels. In a typical project, Devin assisted customers with their technological roadmap, capital budgeting process, human capital strategy, and implementation plans to tie each element together. During these complex sales and implementation cycles, Devin prided himself as a change- agent in both the customer and internal Siemens organization, building consensus and always progressing forward. Examples include developing new business models and pricing strategies for portfolio expansion, successful partnerships with third-parties and customers, and product enhancements based on customer feedback.
During his time at Anderson, Devin has continued his passion around the intersection between technological innovation and business. In the first-year of his MBA, he has been most involved with the Healthcare Business Association (HBA) and UCLA Anderson’s Net Impact chapter. In these positions, Devin has worked with external stakeholders (employers) to build interactions with Anderson students through recruiting and networking events, company visits, and a conference (Impact Week).