Alex Hall is Director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (since 2025), Faculty Director of the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge (since 2023), and a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA (since 2001). His research is aimed at predicting, modeling, and understanding climate change impacts, especially in California and the Western U.S. Alex and his team are currently studying the future of wildfire in the Western U.S., and are working with water management agencies in the Los Angeles region to ensure sustainability of water resources under climate change.
In 2022, Alex co-founded the Climate & Wildfire Institute, a non-profit org, to tackle the rapidly-emerging threat of megafire in the Western U.S. He was a Lead Author of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report, a lead author on the Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment, and a Coordinating Lead Author for the Los Angeles regional chapter of the State of California’s Climate Change Assessment. In 2022, Alex received the UCLA Public Impact Research Award, and in 2019, he was awarded the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Future Horizons in Climate Science Turco Lectureship.