About CHAMP

Efforts to ensure the health of human and natural components of urban areas to climate system variability, such as extreme heat events, and climate change require comprehensive, process-based knowledge and quality data. As an interdisciplinary team of researchers from environmental sciences, environmental humanities, urban ecology, and civil and environmental engineering, we have the expertise and capacity to address the nexus of climate and health throughout the urbanized mosaic of New Jersey. Initially funded under the auspices of the Rutgers Office of Research’s Research Incubator in Climate and Health, CHAMP encompasses the following core objectives:

1. Collecting and synthesizing existing and new environmental, public health, and urban ecosystem data sets that inform understanding of heat impacts on urban communities;
2. Quantifying the spatial and temporal variability and scales at which human and natural communities experience chronic urban heat and extreme heat wave events;
3. Assessing the efficacy of greenspaces and green-gray infrastructure in mitigating the negative consequences exposure to extreme heat on human and natural communities in cities.

Currently, CHAMP is focused on the city of Camden, New Jersey. An essential ongoing activity involves establishing and maintaining neighborhood-scale meteorological monitoring “micronets” within Camden that will allow for more precise quantification of urban heat exposure. Our network currently comprises three automated weather stations (at the Campbell’s Company Corporate Headquarters, on the the RU Camden campus, and at the Healthy Families and Communities of Southern New Jersey), with plans to add two more stations in summer 2026. Click here to access near real-time data from our network!

Through our partnerships with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) and the Healthy Families and Communities (HFC), we are also working to provide actionable guidance about heat (and other climate) impacts to the residents of Camden.  An integral component of this effort is to engage with communities to understand their lived experience, with the objective of co-developing strategies for building resilience to such impacts. Recently, a CHAMP-affiliated team received a Rutgers Research Council Collaborative Multidisciplinary Award addressing messaging to Camden’s Latinx community about urban heat risk.

The MARCH-affiliated VOCES de La Comunidad Project was launched in 2024 to address climate justice and health equity. VOCES places Camden residents at the heart of its mission, fostering connections between community members, researchers, and organizations to tackle critical environmental challenges. Combining scientific research, the humanities, and community storytelling, VOCES provides a platform for collaboration, advocacy, and action, and amplifying the voices of those who are most affected by these issues.  A brief documentary of VOCES is available here.  We encourage you to add your voice to VOCES, which you can do here!