Ladd Keith

Ladd Keith, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning and a faculty research associate at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. An urban planner by training, he has over a decade of experience planning for climate change with diverse stakeholders in cities across the U.S. His research explores heat planning, policy, and governance to help communities increase their heat resilience. He is currently the UA lead of the Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the heat research lead of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, co-investigator of the Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and co-investigator of the Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health (SCORCH) funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He also founded and led the Sustainable Built Environments undergraduate degree program offered in person, fully online, and globally in Peru and Ecuador. He has a Ph.D. in Arid Lands Resource Sciences and an M.S. in Planning from the University of Arizona.

Selected Interviews and Coverage

• America Adapts: The Climate Change Podcast. "Climate Change and Extreme Heat End of Summer Episode with Dr. Kelly Turner and Dr. Ladd Keith." September 11, 2023.
• CNN. “Extreme heat is the deadliest natural disaster. FEMA can’t treat it like one.” August 8, 2023.
• BBC News. “Extreme heat around the world.” July 19, 2023.
• Associated Press. “Biden looks to provide relief from extreme heat as record high temperatures persist across the US.” July 27, 2023.
• The Hill. “Attorneys general call for federal protections against deadly workplace heat.” February 9, 2023.
• The Atlantic. “America Is Going to Have a ‘Heat Belt.’” August 16, 2022.
• Washington Post, “We built a fake metropolis to show how extreme heat could wreck cities.” August 11, 2022.
• The Christian Science Monitor, “How to cool cities, from heat officers to pavement sunscreen.” August 3, 2022.
• Washington Post, As temperatures rise, this research could help cities stay cool. July 8, 2022.

Journal Article Publications

• Keith, Ladd, Sara Meerow, Lauren Jensen, Shaylynn Trego, Erika Schmidt, and Philip Berke. (2023). Evaluating urban heat mitigation across networks of plans. Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X231215780
• Trego, Shaylynn, Sara Meerow, and Ladd Keith. (2023). Heat planning in small and medium-sized cities: A Collaborative application of PIRS™ for Heat in Kent, WA, USA. Socio-Ecological Practice Research. (5)4, 409-422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-023-00166-6
• Keith, Ladd, C.J. Gabbe, and Erika Schmidt. (2023). Urban Heat Governance: Examining the Role of Urban Planning. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning. 25(5), 642-662. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2023.2244446
• Chambers, Samuel N., Heidi E. Brown, Ladd Keith, and Erika Austhof. (2023). Development of a Geographic Human Heat Balance Equation to Support Public Health Analyses: An Arizona Urban Sun Corridor application. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment. 32(2023), 101009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2023.101009
• Chambers, Samuel N., Geoffrey A. Boyce, Daniel E. Martinez, Coen Bongers, and Ladd Keith. (2023). The contribution of physical exertion to heat-related illness and death in the Arizona borderlands. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology. 46(2023), 100590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sste.2023.100590
• Sami, Ida and Ladd Keith. (2023). How do streetcar transit users and streetcar decision-makers perceive heat risk? Journal of Public Transportation. 25(2023), 100045. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubtr.2023.100045
• Hughes, Halley B., David D. Breshears, Kimberly J. Cook, Ladd Keith, and Joseph R. Burger. (2023). Household energy use response to extreme heat evaluated with a biophysical model of temperature regulation: An Arizona case study. PLOS Climate. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000110
• Crisman, Jonathan Jae-An, Ladd Keith, Ida Sami, and Gregg M. Garfin. (2023) Designing Chill City: An interactive game supporting public learning about urban planning for extreme heat. The Journal of Environmental Education. 54(3), 225-239. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2023.2183173
• Iuliano, Joseph E. and Ladd Keith. (2022). Near Misses and Split Routes: Comparing Rider Behavior, Driver Interaction, and Route Choice for Cyclists. Journal of Transportation Safety & Security. 15(11), 1148-1171. https://doi.org/10.1080/19439962.2022.2155745
• Brown, Heidi E., Ladd Keith, Valerie Madera-Garcia*, Anissa Taylor, Nicholas M. Ramirez, and Irene Ogata. (2022). Greening up for mosquitoes: A comparison of green stormwater infrastructure in a semi-arid region. Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association. 38(2), 109-112. https://doi.org/10.2987/21-7055
• Meerow, Sara and Ladd Keith. (2022). Planning for extreme heat: A national survey of U.S. planners. Journal of the American Planning Association. 88(3), 319-334. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2021.1977682
• Keith, Ladd, Sara Meerow, David M. Hondula, V. Kelly Turner, and James C. Arnott. (2021). Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics. Nature. 598(7879), 29-31. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02677-2
• Keith, Ladd, Nicole Iroz-Elardo, Erika Austhof, Ida Sami, and Mona Arora. (2021). Extreme Heat at Outdoor COVID-19 Vaccination Sites. Journal of Climate Change and Health. 4(2021), 100043. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100043
• Keith, Ladd, Sara Meerow, and Tess Wagner. (2020). Planning for extreme heat: A review. Journal of Extreme Events. 6(3&4), 2050003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S2345737620500037
• Austhof, Erika, Vjollca Berisha, Ben McMahan, Gigi Owen, Ladd Keith, Matthew Roach, and Heidi E. Brown. (2020). Participation and Engagement of Public Health Stakeholders in Climate and Health Adaptation. Atmosphere, 11(3), 265. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11030265

Selected Other Publications

• Keith, Ladd, Sara Meerow, Philip Berke, Joseph DeAngelis, Lauren Jensen, Shaylynn Trego, Erika Schmidt, and Smith Stephanie. (2022). Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS™) for Heat: Spatially evaluating networks of plans to mitigate heat. (Version 1.0). American Planning Association.
• Keith, Ladd and Sara Meerow. (2022). Planning for Urban Heat Resilience. Planning Advisory Services (PAS) Report 600. American Planning Association.
• Keith, Ladd and Andrea K. Gerlak. (2021). There's no place in the US safe from the heat. The Hill. August 20, 2021.
• Keith, Ladd and Sara Meerow. (2021). Cities must plan for heat resilience now. Thomson Reuters Foundation. July 5, 2021.
• Shumake-Guillemot, Joy (Ed.). (2020). Protecting Health from Hot Weather during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN). (Contributing author)
• Meadow, Alison M., Sarah LeRoy, Jeremy Weiss, and Ladd Keith. (2018). Climate profile for the City of Flagstaff, Arizona. University of Arizona, Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS).