Assessing Spatial and Altitudinal Variation in Artificial Light at Night Across Urban Los Angeles

Awardee: Joseph Curti

Bio:
Joseph Curti, Ph.D. (he/they) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the UCLA La Kretz Center for
California Conservation Science. Joey’s current research focuses on the impacts of
anthropogenic stressors on bat community composition in urban areas across California. Joey
received his Ph.D. in 2024 from the UCLA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department, where
he worked with statewide resource managers on a variety of conservation genomics projects
including evaluating the impact of roadways in Los Angeles to California quail (Callipepla
californica) gene flow and rangewide landscape genomics of the Yuma myotis bat (Myotis
yumanensis).

Project:
For the 2025-2026 call of the La Kretz Center Research Awards, Joey is proposing to use
drones and onboard spectroradiometers to evaluate 3-dimensional artificial light at night (ALAN)
across Los Angeles. This project will measure spectrally-resolved light pollution values at
different altitudinal strata in order to understand how ALAN is structured in the aerosphere, an
important habitat for many organisms including bats, birds, plants, and microorganisms. The
data from this project will be used by LA City Planning Department to inform community plans
and other efforts to understand how biologically relevant data can be integrated into urban
planning and design.