Travis Longcore Awarded FEMA Grant for Extreme Heat Research and Hazard Mitigation

UCLA Adjunct Professor Dr. Travis Longcore has been awarded a grant of $571,514 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services for research to integrate the hazard of extreme heat into the Local Hazard Mitigation Plans for the City of Los Angeles and County of Los Angeles.

The project involves co-PI Dr. V. Kelly Turner at UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and other colleagues from the Heat Resilient LA project, including former post-doctoral scholar Dr. Sahar Derakhshan, now at California State Polytechnic University – Pomona.

The team will implement heat vulnerability screening for Los Angeles County, develop detailed shade maps, use smartphone location data to identify locations where vulnerable populations are exposed to extreme heat conditions that could be ameliorated by shade, and make recommendations on how these results can be integrated into local hazard mitigation plans. The project effort will extend through 2026.