Student bolsters study on Arizona cities facing extreme heat
U of A students Alekzander Ryan and Samantha Provenzano spent much of last summer counting cars at nearly 200 spots around Tucson – including here at West Anklam and North Greasewood roads. The work is part of the Southwest Urban Integrated Field Laboratory, Department of Energy-funded collaboration between Arizona's three state universities to study extreme heat. One of the SW-IFL's goals is to help develop heat-resilient solutions in Arizona's major metro areas.
Arlene Islas/University Communications
Chemical engineering senior Samantha Provenzano conducted fieldwork as part of a multi-university research group studying the impacts of extreme heat in Arizona. The Southwest Urban Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL), a collaboration between the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the U.S. Department of Energy, is developing ways to mitigate the effects of extreme heat on growing urban areas in the state.
Provenzano and her colleague Alekzander Ryan, who is a master’s candidate studying urban planning at U of A, collected data on traffic in different locations around Tucson. As part of the project's HeatMappers team, the student researchers logged the number and types of vehicles that passed by during their observation periods using the Hestia Traffic app developed at NAU. This data is useful for estimating carbon emissions at those locations.
“In the app you can see that there are some marked locations,” said Provenzano. “We’d drive to that location, find a nice shady spot and pull up a chair to look out on the road and count.”
Extreme heat is a serious threat, with 977 heat-related deaths in Arizona in 2024 alone. Data collected by Provenzano, Ryan and other student researchers will be vital in SW-IFL’s goal of creating heat-resilient solutions for Arizona’s major cities.