Academia
We have partnered with a number of local universities to work on various projects. The goal is to collect data and express it to the public in an engaging and informative way.
Our Work With Stanford University
Our collaboration with Stanford University continues to grow, connecting local community needs with student-driven research and innovation to create tools and programs that directly serve South San Francisco residents.
Through our partnership, students have played a hands-on role in strengthening Rise South City's outreach and operations. Students have also helped us conduct surveys and develop tools that we use to help put air quality information directly in the hands of South San Francisco residents
UC Davis Partnerships
Rise South City partners with UC Davis Community Air Projects to bring advanced air monitoring and analysis to our community — helping connect local measurements to possible pollution sources, resident questions, and environmental justice action.
This collaboration goes beyond standard PM2.5 monitoring with two specialized tools:
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TARTA monitoring — analyzes metals in PM2.5 to help identify possible local pollution source patterns (e.g., transportation, industrial activity, construction, airport-related sources) that standard monitoring can't show.
Read More On TARTA Monitors Here
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VOC monitoring — uses a portable GC/MS instrument (HAPSITE ER) to detect volatile organic compounds not captured by particle monitoring alone.
Together, these tools help residents and researchers ask deeper questions about local air quality, grounded in community priorities and lived experience — not just data collection alone.
Learn more about how this fits into our broader air quality work on our Air Quality page.
Read Our Most Recent UC Davis Report
UC Berkeley
Dr. Cesunica Ivey generously provided more than 25 PurpleAir sensors to Rise South City. This support helped build the foundation for community air monitoring efforts.
This partnership shows how academic and technical collaborators can strengthen community-led work by sharing resources and supporting local capacity. The goal is not only to collect data, but to help communities better understand their own environments and use information to support public health and environmental justice.
