Danielle Zoe Rivera is an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at 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, particularly before and after disasters. 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 in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Environment and Planning, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the 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. Before 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.