Dr. Regan F. Patterson is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was previously the Transportation Equity Research Fellow for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, DC and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.
Her research interests include air quality, sustainable transportation, community engagement, and environmental justice. More specifically, she examines and models the impact of transportation and infrastructure policies as well as place-based, community-driven interventions on air pollution exposure disparities and environmental justice. Dr. Patterson earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley and her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UCLA.
Anika Tasnia
Anika Tasnia is a Ph.D. student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UCLA, specializing in transportation equity and environmental justice. Her research focuses on the impacts of infrastructural development on flooding and their disproportionate effects on marginalized communities.
Anika takes an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the nexus among climate change, environmental sustainability, infrastructure planning, and community development. Her work is dedicated to designing resilient infrastructure systems that mitigate the adverse effects of climate-induced disruptions and extreme weather events.
Zanobia R. Ibrahim-Watkins is a second-year Ph.D. student in Environmental Engineering at UCLA. She is dedicated to the advancement of environmental justice by utilizing environmental engineering techniques to address disparities in marginalized communities. Zanobia conducts research at the intersection of environmental engineering qualitative and quantitative methods and community engagement methods to examine the distribution of toxic environmental contaminants and investigate equitable, community-centered, environmental- and sustainability-focused solutions. She also serves as the Environmental Justice Project Liaison for Dr. Patterson's course, Engineering and Environmental Justice.
Garret May is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA. His research focuses on nano-catalyst synthesis, liquid organic hydrogen carriers, and environmental justice. He aims to contextualize scientific novelty within society to not only make something new and interesting, but to innovate for good. As a graduate representative for the Materials Research Society and fellow for the Center for Developing Leadership in Science, Garret builds community within the department of Materials Science and Engineering and across campus, connecting with others passionate about STEM education and climate advocacy.
Lilith is a doctoral student in the Department of Urban Planning. Her research broadly examines how the urban planning profession is attempting to reimagining itself as a field of racial justice in light of its legacy as a political tool to serve Whiteness. Her current work examines the federal Reconnecting Communities program as an example of how the transportation planning sector is working to acknowledge and redress the past racial harms of the highway interstate program. She is particularly interested in how agencies are combining both infrastructural and non-infrastructure treatments to deliver repair.
Mahtab Ahmed is a second-year Master’s student in Civil & Environmental Engineering at UCLA, with a focus on advancing social and environmental justice through transportation. His research examines the intersection of highway expansion and warehouse development, and their combined impacts on air quality in nearby communities. He is particularly interested in understanding how these infrastructure and land-use patterns disproportionately affect marginalized and vulnerable populations, and how equitable transportation planning can help address these disparities.
Ivan Manan is a second-year Master’s student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research focuses on traffic simulation, with a current project analyzing the impact of converting the I-980 freeway in Oakland to a boulevard. The analysis will include before-and-after travel times and congestion effects on both parallel surface streets and the adjacent I-580 and I-880 freeways.
Hanifah Abatcha is a Master’s student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, focusing on water resources and hydrology. She is interested in modeling flood and hydrological conditions, with an emphasis on incorporating community engagement.
Janani Acharya is a second-year undergraduate student at UCLA, studying Linguistics and Computer Science with a minor in Geospatial Information Systems and Technologies. She's interested in leveraging the intersection of technology and sustainability, with a current focus on air quality modeling and GIS analysis. She enjoys playing music and going rock climbing in her spare time.
Kevin Briseno is a second-year pursuing Physiology and Environmental Science, and is passionate about connecting environmental justice to human health. He is from San Bernardino, an area overridden by large amounts of warehouses and the projects he is involved in. Kevin is especially interested in quantifying health impacts through epidemiology, collecting air quality data, and community-centered work. He is a strong proponent of listening to community needs before acting on their behalf and advancing sustainability in low-income communities through peer education. During his off days, Kevin enjoys running, weightlifting, cooking, and creating choreographies.
Lauren Victoria Lopez is a second-year majoring in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA. She is passionate about improving air quality in low-income communities of color around Los Angeles, including her own. Growing up in Carson, with parents and grandparents from Wilmington, two areas of LA with densely packed refineries and oil drilling sites, she has seen firsthand the impacts of poor air quality on community health. These experiences drive her focus on environmental justice advocacy, air pollution research, transportation equity, and air quality modeling to better understand and address the links between pollution exposure and health inequities in underrepresented communities.
Rachel Jiang is a fourth-year undergraduate student and Environmental Science major. She is interested in the intersection between the environment and public health and aims to address and eliminate environmental health inequities.
Tomo Watanabe is a fourth-year Mechanical Engineering student at UCLA, graduating Spring quarter of 2026. Joining EEJL in Fall of 2025, his current involvement includes data collection and analysis of air quality in South Los Angeles communities, as well as interacting and collaborating with the community partner. He is also a researcher at NTRG, a UCLA lab focusing on graphite production using solar energy instead of fossil fuels, and volunteers at PATH homeless shelters. In his free time, he enjoys backpacking, leatherworking, playing the guitar, and playing games with friends.
