Danielle Zoe Rivera

Department: Environmental Design

Danielle Zoe Rivera is Assistant Professor in the department of Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning. She joins the University of California Berkeley as part of a university-wide cluster hire focused on Climate Equity and Environmental Justice.

Rivera’s work examines environmental planning, urban design, and community development. Within these spaces, she focuses on issues of environmental justice and climate equity affecting low-income communities. Her current work leverages community-based research and design methods to identify and address environmental injustices affecting low-income communities throughout South Texas, the Bay Area, and Puerto Rico. She has conducted past research in Southeast Michigan, the Philadelphia region, and the Denver region. Rivera directs the Just Environments Lab, which seeks to center concerns of social justice and equity in discussions of the future of our environment.

Rivera’s work has been published by the Journal of the American Planning Association, Environment and Planning, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. She holds a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the Pennsylvania State University.