Melissa Guardaro

Melissa Guardaro is an Assistant Research Professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University and is also the Associate Director, Resilience Hubs at theKnowledge Exchange for Resilience (KER). Her research focuses on adaptation, equity, vulnerability, urban policy, and governance for the mitigation and adaptation to extreme heat and urban heat island effects. She is currently co-leading the Arizona Heat Resilience Workgroup which coordinates regional heat mitigation and adaptation efforts. Melissa founded the Arizona Cooling Center working group, whose mission is to use data to inform cooling center strategies and to promote collaboration across the public, private and non-profit sectors. She is working to create neighborhood heat solutions that improve thermal comfort and public health outcomes with the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa through the development of resilience hubs and hyper-local climate plans. She completed a Ph.D. in Sustainability from Arizona State University, a master’s degree in Sustainability and Environmental Management from Harvard, and an MBA from Columbia University.