Liz Koslov

Liz Koslov is Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Environment and Sustainability, and Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, contributing to the social science faculty through her interdisciplinary work since 2018. Prior to UCLA, she held a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Comparative Media Studies/Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2017 to 2018. Koslov received her Ph.D. in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University in 2017, where she was affiliated with the Institute for Public Knowledge and the Superstorm Research Lab, a mutual-aid collective studying climate change, disaster, inequality, and urban politics. She also holds an M.Sc. in Culture and Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2009 and a B.A. in Communication and Spanish and Latin American Literatures from George Washington University in 2008, during which she was awarded the Presidential Scholarship for Academic Achievement from 2004 to 2008.

Her research employs an ethnographic approach to analyze the politics of urban climate change adaptation, with a focus on debates surrounding responses to sea-level rise, flooding, and wildfire, critically examining managed retreat from high-risk areas. She is writing Retreat: Moving to Higher Ground in a Climate-Changed City, under advance contract with the University of Chicago Press, detailing homeowners in Staten Island, New York, who organized for buyouts after Hurricane Sandy. Key publications include 'Critically Assessing the Idea of Wildfire Managed Retreat' with Kathryn McConnell (Environmental Research Letters, 2024), 'When rebuilding no longer means recovery: The stress of staying put after Hurricane Sandy' with Alexis Merdjanoff, Elana Sulakshana, and Eric Klinenberg (Climatic Change, 2021), 'Avoiding climate change: “Agnostic adaptation” and the politics of public silence' (Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2019), and 'The Case for Retreat' (Public Culture, 2016). Koslov has secured significant funding, including a National Science Foundation grant as PI for 'Assessing managed retreat as an adaptive response to wildfire risk' (2023-2025), a Faculty Research Grant from UCLA's Ziman Center (2023-2025), and fellowships such as the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2016). She teaches on climate change via the built environment, social life of sea-level rise, and environmental justice, and serves in leadership roles including Chair of the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (2023-2025), Legislative Assembly Representative for the UCLA Academic Senate (2024-2026), and Undergraduate Program Coordinator for Urban Planning (2022-2023). Her scholarship informs public discourse, with contributions to The New York Times and other outlets.

Professional Email: koslov@ucla.edu