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Lara J. Cushing’s research focuses on the racial justice implications of disparities in exposure to environmental health hazards in the U.S. She assesses the health consequences of environmental and climate-related exposures on pregnant women and infants, utilizing epidemiological and geospatial methods to investigate questions of environmental justice in the context of urban greenspace, man-made chemicals, oil and gas development, drinking water quality, extreme heat, and sea level rise. Cushing is interested in analytical methods and regulatory frameworks characterizing the joint effects of environmental and social stressors on health, informing efforts to reduce environmental health disparities in partnership with community-based organizations. She is a contributing author for the Fourth Assessment of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and has held fellowships at the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Prior to joining UCLA, she was on the faculty at San Francisco State University from 2016 to 2020.
Department of Economics admits primarily for the PhD program.