Greg Pierce

Research + Co-Executive Director, Luskin Center for Innovation | Director, Human Right to Water Solutions Lab

Greg Pierce (he/him) is the research and co-executive director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab. He is also the director of the UCLA Water Resources Group within the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and serves as a professor in the Department of Urban Planning.

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.

His work in Los Angeles has focused on the policy and equity implications of local energy and water transitions. He has been doing around the clock work on the role of and narratives around water supply systems and wildfires since the January 2025 LA fires ignited.

He has secured 50+ extramural research funding awards as a principal investigator at the Center. Current and past sponsors of this work include the California State Water Resources Control Board, the California Air Resources Board, the Strategic Growth Council, the Water Foundation, LADWP and Los Angeles County DPW.

Greg is an author or co-author of 60+ peer-reviewed articles, including many in the leading journals in urban studies, infrastructure planning and policy and environmental health, as well as 20+ major Luskin Center for Innovation reports. Greg’s work regularly appears on television, radio, and print media.