Luis Ortiz
- Assistant Professor
Contact Info

- Name
- Luis E. Ortiz
- Preferred Pronouns
- he/him
- Job Title
- Assistant Professor
- Phone Number
- Office Number
- "FUSE Room 6314 3401 Fairfax Dr, Arlington, VA 22226"
Affiliations
Departments
Centers
- Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA)
Research Areas
- Atmospheric Science
- Climate Science
- Urban climate
Education
PhD, Mechanical Engineering - Urban Climate & Energy, The City College of New York (2018)
About
My research centers on advancing our understanding of how cities interact with the atmosphere in the context of a changing climate, and the impacts these interactions have on people and infrastructure. My work considers cities as complex systems of environmental, human, and engineered domains, and aims to consider all three as critical to understanding the impacts of climate change as well as adaptation and mitigation strategies. I pursue this work through a combination of high resolution dynamical and statistical modeling of urban weather & climate and climate impacts analysis across sectors.
In addition to research, I work on the translation of actionable climate science to decision-makers across a range of scales. My work in this area includes co-leading the Virginia Climate Center, serving the New York City Panel on Climate Change, and leading the planning-stage Center for Climate Risk Applications.
I earned my PhD in 2018 from the City College of New York studying building-atmosphere interactions under extreme heat. I then joined the Urban Systems Lab at The New School from 2018 to 2021, where I worked on socioeconomic impacts of climate change in cities across the Americas. Before joining George Mason University in 2022, I completed an appointment with the Office of the US Secretary of Transportation, where I worked on climate policy, environmental justice, and environmental permitting transparency.
Current Research
My current research focuses on studying impacts of climate and urban change across a variety of domains ranging from energy demand to human and infrastructure exposure to weather extremes. This work leverages fine-grain urban morphology data derived from public records (e.g., tax lot geometries) and land use models as inputs to high resolution urban-scale climate models. Other projects include multi-disciplinary collaborations to study the impacts of changing climate hazards on people and infrastructure.
Teaching Focus
CLIM 103 - Global Warming: Weather, Climate, and Society
CLIM 680 - Climate Data
CLIM 759 - Micrometeorological Modeling for Local Climate Action
Selected Publications
Janatabadi, F., Ortiz, L., & Ermagun, A. (2025). Extreme heat threatens railroads with connectivity and ridership loss in the United States. Npj Urban Sustainability, 5(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-025-00227-7
Ortiz, L., Braneon, C., Horton, R., Bader, D., Orton, P., Gornitz, V., Rosenzweig, B., McPhearson, T., Smalls-Mantey, L., Sheerazi, H., Montalto, F. A., Golkhandan, M. R., Evans, C., DeGaetano, A., Mallen, E., Carter, L., McConnell, K., Mayo, T., & Buchanan, M. (2024). NPCC4: Tail risk, climate drivers of extreme heat, and new methods for extreme event projections. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1539(1), 49–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.15180
Ortiz, L. E., Stiles, R., Whitaker, S., Maibach, E., Kinter, J., Henneman, L., Krall, J., Bubbosh, P., & Cash, B. (2023). Public health benefits of zero-emission electric power generation in Virginia. Heliyon, e20198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20198
Ortiz, L., Gamarro, H., Gonzalez, J. E., & McPhearson, T. (2022). Energy burden and air conditioning adoption in New York City under a warming climate. Sustainable Cities and Society, 76, 103465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103465
Ortiz, L., Mustafa, A., Cantis, P. H., & McPhearson, T. (2022). Overlapping heat and COVID-19 risk in New York City. Urban Climate, 41, 101081. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101081
Contact Info

- Name
- Luis E. Ortiz
- Preferred Pronouns
- he/him
- Job Title
- Assistant Professor
- Phone Number
- Office Number
- "FUSE Room 6314 3401 Fairfax Dr, Arlington, VA 22226"