Environmental Justice

Environmental problems affect everyone on the planet, but disenfranchised communities are often the most affected and least represented. We mentor and develop a diverse contingent of experts while confronting injustices at the community and global level.

Magazine

Healing mother earth, healing ourselves

Story

Healing mother earth, healing ourselves

Denica Riadini-Flesch

Economist-turned-entrepreneur Denica Riadini-Flesch, a 2025 Pritzker Award finalist, reflects on how she left conventional models of growth to build a regenerative fashion movement

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In the News

Blog

California Heat

The real elephant in the room is the historic poor construction of our built environment.

Warm orange sunset behind the skyline of Los Angeles.

Announcements

CDLS Repeating Events: Winter Quarter

CDLS hosts a variety of weekly events for fellows and community members. Sign up to the CDLS mailing list or view our events to find out about other events and…

View of the horizon above the cloud layer

Fellows

STEM, Star Wars & Sea Monsters

How Cosplay for Science bridges science & pop culture

STEM, Star Wars & Sea Monsters

Fellows

Inspiring Communities Through Science Communication: Marcos Magaña’s LA Times Fellowship

How a CDLS Fellow is bridging science and journalism

Marcos Magana, a Latino man with short black hair, stands smiling in front of UCLA’s Janss Steps, wearing a white button-up shirt, black tie, and blue graduation sash.

Announcements

Featured in L.A. Times—Edith de Guzman, Ph.D. ’23, reimagines L.A. climate inequities through art at Descanso Gardens

Featured in this week’s Los Angeles Times Climate and Environment coverage, Edith de Guzman, Ph.D. ‘23, brings climate and heat inequities to the spotlight. This summer at Descano Gardens, a…

Edith de Guzman stands inside an art installation of colorful hanging panels, holding a rolled paper. She is co-curator of the “Roots of Cool” exhibition on shade equity at Descanso Gardens, shown in front of artist Cidne Hart’s piece “Traversing the Warming Forest.”
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Videos

Student practicum team drills into urban oil fields

A student-led survey has uncovered stark disparities in public health outcomes for L.A. neighborhoods with oil and gas drilling.

Open for business in the Congo rainforest

Recently, crew of college students from UCLA and Cameroon left convenience behind and plunged into the rainforest. Their objective: reopen a field station that had been shuttered for two decades,…

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People

Kadidia Thiero

Kadidia Thiero

Project Policy Analyst III

CDLS

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Centers

Support students through the Center for Diverse Leadership in Science

The first-ever university center for diversity in environmental science was launched at UCLA in 2018.

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Publications

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