Michael Méndez

Michael Méndez is an assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine, and visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (through a National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career Award). He was previously the Pinchot Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of the Environment. His first book Climate Change from the Streets, published through Yale University Press (2020) was the winner of the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, sponsored by the International Studies Association and the Association for Humanist Sociology’s Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Award. In 2022, he was awarded the Carnegie Fellowship. He has more than a decade of senior-level experience in the public and private sectors, where he consulted and actively engaged in the policymaking process. This included working for the California Legislature as a senior consultant, lobbyist, member of the California State Mining & Geology Board, and as vice-chair of the Sacramento City Planning Commission. In 2021, Governor Newsom appointed him to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. In 2023, he was appointed to serve on the National Advisory Council of FEMA. He currently serves on the Public Policy Institute of California’s board of directors.