Assistant professor Mehdi P. Heris’s project to develop an urban heat mitigation portal for the New York City region has been funded by a $250,000 grant from NASA. This project is part of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate focused on Equity and Environmental Justice. Other co-investigators in this project are Peter Marcotullio and Andrew Reinmann from the department of Geography and Environmental Science of Hunter College and Travis Flohr from Penn State University. The NASA ROSES A.49 program is the first of its kind to encourage the use of NASA’s Earth Observation data to address environmental justice issues. Other partners in this project are the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice of NYC, Jersey City’s Department of Planning, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and I Love Greenville of Jersey City. This project will provide a platform where local governments and advocacy groups can access heat mitigation strategies curated specifically for the planning process. Zhi Keng, Andrea Avila, Rosy George, and Annie Carforo, graduate students of Hunter College, were involved in preparing the project proposal and will continue to work on the project.
