The UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge hosted a Wildfire Research Symposium on May 7, 2026, with speakers from across LA and the broader research community. The Urban Firestorms: Risk and Resilience symposium set to bring together researchers, civic leaders, community partners, and philanthropists to develop a solutions-oriented shared agenda for reducing urban-wildfire risk in Los Angeles and beyond

Dr. Kari Nadeau, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard and incoming Dean of UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, as well as co-lead of the LA Fire HEALTH Study Health Outcomes Team, spoke on the first panel of the day, Research Meets Reality: Mobilizing Universities for Fire Resilience. Dr. Nadeau discussed how the LA Fire HEALTH Study Consortium was quickly formed in the aftermath of the January 2025 wildfires in Altadena and Palisades to address large gaps in the research on the environmental exposures present in urban wildfires, and what the associated health outcomes are. Watch the full discussion here:

Dr. David Eisenmann, Director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters, and co-lead of the LA Fire HEALTH Study Health Outcomes Team, spoke on the last panel of the day, Everything That Burns: Building Resilience to Future Fire, to discuss the need for systems-level change and policy interventions to address wildfire resiliency in local communities, and across the state. Dr. Eisenmann spoke about the recent shift (and the continued need) to shift from disaster preparedness to building community resiliency, and his work with the Los Angeles County Community Disaster and Resilience Project. Watch the panel discussion here:

You can also view the full day’s events and highlights in this Youtube Playlist.