The Center for Urban Resilience is proud to announce our 25 most noteworthy achievements from 2025. Last year, CURes reached new heights in our research, partnerships, events, and community involvement. Please join us in celebrating these milestones!
CATE Symposium
On November 20, the LMU Center for Urban Resilience welcomed over 125 attendees and presenters to the inaugural Cities and the Environment (CATE) symposium, with support from Edison International and TreePeople. For 18 years, the CATE Journal has provided an international forum for urban researchers and practitioners to explore social-ecological theories, share relevant data, and exchange best practices. Click here to view our blog post about the event.
CATE Journal 3 Issues
Volume 18 in 2025 marked the first year since its founding that the Cities and the Environment Journal published three issues: Issue 1, Urban Rewilding (published May 2025), a special issue with 10 articles led by CATE Contributing Editor Mallika Sardeshpande and Guest Editor Alessio Russo; and Issue 2 (July 2025) and Issue 3 (December 2025) with 5 articles each. CATE was fortunate to continue to retain the expertise of two international contributing editors: Dr. Mallika Sardeshpande from Bangalore, India and Dr. Opeyemi Adeyemi from Akure, Nigeria. Read more about Drs. Sardeshpande and Adeyemi here.
Taft Gardens Project
Our collaborative project at the Taft Gardens & Nature Preserve in Ojai commenced in early 2025 with by convening Indigenous partners for a walk and land blessing to kick-off our wildfire restoration project. The site was severely damaged by the Thomas Fire in 2020, and CURes has partnered with Edison International, the Taft Team, indigenous leaders, local naturalists, and ecological experts to begin significant restoration, improve accessibility, and create educational programs.
Gateway Cities Project
CURes is working with the Gateway Cities Regional Climate Collaborative (GCRCC) in their mission to engage neighborhoods along the 710 Freeway and West Santa Ana Branch Metro light rail corridors in Los Angeles to increase their health, wealth, sustainability, and climate resiliency. We are partnering with TreePeople to design a roadmap to create local Climate Action Plans, based on a highly localized assessment of priorities, assets, and needs for the region.
Ventura County Water Project
The VRWRP Network Assessment is a project conducted by the California State University, Northridge Center for Geospatial Science & Technology, California State University, San Bernardino Institute for Water Resiliency, and LMU CURes in partnership with the Ventura County Resource Conservation District. These groups worked together to complete the assessment of the existing regional network in the Ventura River Watershed through an online survey that was sent to 72 community partners in May 2025. The goal of this assessment was to determine how existing partnerships can support the watershed resilience planning effort and to identify opportunities to strengthen collaboration.
Symposia and Seminars
CURes participated in the CSJ Center for Reconciliation and Justice Annual Symposium with the theme, “Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor: (Re)igniting the Voice of the Marginalized” in February 2025. Dr. Strauss moderated a panel discussion entitled, “Back to the Future: Learning from Indigenous Knowledge on Ethics and Sustainability,” between indigenous elders and a LMU business professor. This event represents a significant contribution to the university’s effort to forward the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. CURes’ ongoing partnership with the CSJ Center supports this important initiative, which is central to our mission.
Scholarly Publications
CURes’ publications in 2025 included two scientific journal articles illuminating the breadth of our research. Dr. Romolini led an Earth Stewardship paper in partnership with the research team at TreePeople exploring the process they employed to work with residents in the City of San Fernando to better understand what climate resilience means for them. Dr. Strauss continued his collaboration with Dr. Kate Weiss and other experts on urban coyotes, publishing a paper in Ecology and Evolution on the seasonal and geometric variability of coyote diets in Phoenix, AZ.
Gottlieb Film
CURes was contracted by the Gottlieb Foundation to produce a documentary film on their native garden in Los Angeles. Assembling a team led by school of film and television professor Greg Rosen and Eric Strauss, the film was produced using original music and animation to support the story of the garden. Scheduled for release in February 2026, rooted in change the story of the Gottlieb native garden will be featured at an LMU symposium and begin its journey to film festivals and ultimately for distribution. The hour long film features the Gardens history, ecology and influence on other gardens and science programs across the city. Narrated by Dr. Eric Strauss, the film captures the 30 year passion project of the garden’s founders Susan and Dan Gottlieb.
POUNCE Project
In collaboration with the university of Massachusetts Chan, School of Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), CURes is collaborating on a community science project in which local participants are working as behavioral scientists to understand some of the mysteries of domestic dog behavior. The POUNCE project challenges volunteers to watch multiple one minute video segments and note whether or not they se the initiation of pounce and grab behavior in young puppies. This stage of development is critical for the proper adult behavior of both domestic and wild dogs. The genes that control these behaviors are of particular interest in understanding human neurological development and function. The study is designed to see if non-specialized volunteers can effectively score the data on video recordings of puppy behavior. If successful, the technique can be used to speed up the gathering of behavioral data in these developmental studies. Click here to learn more and join the study!
Nature Conservancy Workshops
In our second year of work with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) on the “Healthy Trees Healthy Cities Baltimore Project”, we held two design workshops with our community partners, residents, and funders. The workshops served as an opportunity for residents to connect with funders regarding grant opportunities, and to work on developing robust site plans for trees and park spaces in their communities, with support from designers at TNC. Click here to view a short video from TNC covering our second workshop.
Ecological Society of America Presentation
At the 110th Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD, members of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) presented nearly three decades of work from the long-term urban ecology research study initiated in 1998 with funding from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Romolini participated in an organized oral session entitled, “BES Lives!” referring to the continued collaborative efforts in Baltimore in spite of losing NSF funding in 2022. Her talk, “Assessing urban environmental stewardship networks in Baltimore: 25 years of research & practice,” showcased the findings and outcomes to date from Baltimore’s stewardship research.
Tree People Climate Gardening Symposium Presentation
Dr. Romolini spoke at the 4th Annual Los Angeles Soil Symposium, hosted by TreePeople with the theme of “Climate Gardening” as a climate adaptation and human-centered approach to landscaping. Dr. Romolini’s talk, “Art-Based Engagement to Promote Human-Centered Landscapes” described CURes’ work with The Nature Conservancy and others in Baltimore to use spoken work poetry, animation, and storytelling to learn about residents’ truths, frustrations, memories and dreams related to urban nature and urban forestry in the city.
Keynote Addresses
Dr. Eric Strauss delivered two keynote addresses during the year, both of which focused on the importance of urban ecology in shaping the future of hopeful and resilient cities. One talk was to the Association of Armenian Scientists and Engineers at their annual meeting in Glendale and the second was for the California Institute of Advanced Management’s Fall Symposium in Alhambra.
Restorative Justice Trainings
Our work in the restorative justice space continued to flourish this year with two new partnerships. On August 8, 2025, restorative justice practitioners held a day-long training for three groups of faculty and staff at Whittier City School District on their professional development day. The kick-off to this day began with a keynote speech to the district from Dr. Eric Strauss. We also started an ongoing training program with faculty and staff working within the Los Angeles County of Education, which has continued into 2026.
Ballona Discovery Park News
In March 2025, the Ballona Discovery Park Partners installed a long-awaited drinking fountain, which was received with great enthusiasm by Park goers. Mid-June, LMU and the other Discovery Park Partners, Friends of Ballona Wetlands and the community of Playa Vista, launched a new website and social media pages to showcase the efforts of this non-profit entity in the management of Ballona Discovery Park Ballona Discovery Park Home Page, Ballona Discovery Park Facebook, Ballona Discovery Park Instagram .
Ballona Discovery Park Friendraiser
On June 24, 2025, the Park Partners put on a Friendraiser inviting individual and corporate neighbors to showcase the accomplishments of this 14 year old Park (see LMU article). It should be noted that Lisa Fimiani is the Board President of the Ballona Discovery Park Partners and Dr. Eric Strauss is the Park’s Executive Director.
LMU Tours
Our Center is always excited when local colleges send professors and students to “Experience Ballona!” in Ballona Discovery Park, and this year we hosted many tours for new folks, starting in January with professors and students from Soka University. This tour was the inspiration for an event held a month later back at Soka University in February called ‘Listening to Ballona’, aimed to initiate an interdisciplinary conversation about the possible ways that nature and humanity might peacefully, sustainably, and creatively co-exist in the future. Also in February 2025, professors from Bellarmine and Seaver Colleges brought students, some for the first time, to dive deep into the understanding of the native plants, birds, butterflies, insects, amphibians, mammals and Gabrielino Tongva history in the Ballona Watershed.
LMU Events
In April 2025, CURes hosted an iNaturalist BioBlitz in partnership with Heal the Bay and Green LMU in Ballona Discovery Park where attendees posted 230 observations of 80 species! In May 2025, Lisa Fimiani spoke to a Young Birders Club with Pasadena Audubon about hummingbirds. Also in May Dr. Eric Strauss and Lisa Fimiani tabled the Friends’ Migration Celebration in Ballona Discovery Park, where a record 800 visitors came through as part of the day’s festivities. In June 2025, Lisa Fimiani led several bird walks for the week-long meeting of the Wilson Ornithological Society. In July 2025, Lisa Fimiani was invited by Gabrielino Tongva Tribal Chair Robert Dorame to lead a tour of Ballona Discovery Park for some designers of a new Park in Topanga, with an emphasis on the indigenous history and culture of the area. Also in July, Lisa and Dr. Strauss led a tour with an LMU professor in the College of Business Administration with visiting students from Korea. In August 2025, Lisa Fimiani participated in the 20th anniversary tour of the Ballona Freshwater Marsh on the same day as a Ballona Discovery Park tour of over 200 LMU Freshman as part of their orientation.
Monarch & Caterpillar Gardens International Count
CURes has posted many times about our involvement on Campus encouraging Monarch butterfly populations to continue thriving in SOCAL. Our favorite part of all this is getting LMU students excited about the phenomenon of this butterfly’s presence and tenacity to live. We are excited to partner with other LMU departments in this endeavor, because maintaining the pollinator gardens takes a village, and we have a great one at LMU! (various blog posts: CURes Participates in Multiple Earth Day Events during the Month of April, Twin Oaks Pollinator Garden Attracts Monarch Butterflies!, 2024 CURes Year-In-Review.)
Birds on Campus – Hummingbird Alley, Bluebirds Returning
LMU continues to be a very birdy campus we are now up to 166 documented species and we celebrated our feathered friends by blog posting about our returning Western Bluebird families and interesting paternal behavior on the part of Dark-eyed Junco dads who were observed feeding their young around Father’s Day. To draw attention to our hummingbird population we put up a banner in an alley where we feed have feeders by our Research Annex (see Facebook post).
Victor Elementary School Tours 5 Years
For the 5th year in a row our Center hosted the entire Victor Elementary School 5th grade class tours of Ballona Discovery Park and the Ballona Freshwater Marsh. Funded by an Edison International grant, our Center partnered with Friends of Ballona Wetlands and invited their participation in the educational part of the tours.
January Fires and Zone 0 Post-Wildfire Activity
The start of 2025 was a wakeup call for Angelenos in dealing with the tragic SOCAL fires in January and the year-long aftermath of cleanup and assessment. CURes was at the forefront of analysis and discussions about envisioning the future of LA with the possibility of more fires and resulting floods during rainy seasons. We are on several committees and participate in a new Defensible Space working group hosted by UCLA, created for colleagues to meet on a regular basis by zoom to discuss the impending Zone Zero mandates coming down from the State. Lisa Fimiani also spoke in person at a State Board of Forestry meeting in September, on behalf of CURes and LMU’s position on the importance of native plants in defending against urban fires.
Roots & Shoots Project
CURes was asked to partner with Jane Goodall’s non-profit Roots & Shoots and Toyota to put in an edible and native plant garden for 2nd graders at 186th Elementary School in Gardena. A day of celebration occurred in October where students and community members came to plant edibles and learn about nature Facebook post by Councilmember Tim McOsker.
Baltimore Ecosystem Study Leadership Team
An investigator with the project since 2008, Dr. Romolini joined the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Leadership Team in 2025, helping to shape the quarterly science meetings and other efforts of this long-term collaborative effort.
Remembering Jane Goodall
Our Center paused and commented about the passing of Jane Goodall in October. She was an inspiration to us all and we were humbled to share our experiences in her memory through a blog post.