Danielle Rivera

environmental justice; climate justice; environmental planning; community design; Mexican American and Puerto Rican studies

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.

Prior to joining the University of California Berkeley, Rivera served as faculty in the Program of Environmental Design at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Department of Architecture at The Pennsylvania State University.

2021 Rivera, D. Z., Jenkins, B.,* & Randolph, R.* “Procedural Vulnerability and its Effects on Equitable Post-Disaster Recovery in Low-Income Communities.” Journal of the American Planning Association. OnlineFirst. 2021 Rivera, D. Z. “Design in Planning: Bridging the Social Sciences and Humanities.” Urban Planning, 6 (1), 93-104.

2020 Rivera, D. Z. “Disaster Colonialism: A Commentary on Disasters beyond Singular Events to Structural Violence.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, OnlineFirst.

2020 Rivera, D. Z. The Community Union Model of Organizing in Rio Grande Valley Colonias. Special Issue of Environment and Planning C, OnlineFirst.

2014 Rivera, D. Z. The Forgotten Americans: A Visual Exploration of Lower Rio Grande Valley Colonias. Michigan Journal of Sustainability, 2, 119-130.

2013 Haider, J., Aeschbacher, P., Bose, M., & Rivera, D. Active Living in Small Town America: An Approach to Parks and Recreation Planning and Design. Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly, 33(4), 345-359.