Mapping Heat Across Atlanta’s Neighborhoods
On a summer Atlanta afternoon, the temperature can shift block by block. A street lined with trees feels bearable. Two intersections over, asphalt radiates heat and the air hangs heavy. Those differences are not incidental, nor are they harmless. For PhD candidate Ashley Boone, data provides a pathway to change that reality by mapping, interpreting, and mobilizing environmental patterns in the city.
Ashley Boone (pictured) researches how community-based organizations collect and use data to drive local social change, treating data production itself as a form of digital activism.
At Georgia Tech’s Technology Square Research Building, Boone studies data not as an abstract technical output but as civic infrastructure. Trained in human-centered computing, she builds projects that place data directly in the hands of communities and asks who gets to use it.
“My work centers on community partnerships and human-centered approaches to data,” Boone said. Rather than focusing only on what technology can measure, she asks who the data is for, who gets to interpret it, and how it can shape policy.
That perspective anchors much of her research, particularly her work on extreme heat in Atlanta.
Data as a Civic Tool
Boone’s research operates at the intersection of community science and public policy. Across projects, she studies how citizen-generated data can support political and planning goals, especially in communities that are often overlooked in traditional datasets.
Traditional environmental data often comes from stationary monitoring stations or remote sensing models from satellite data. Those tools are essential, but they rarely capture lived, block-by-block realities or reflect how environmental burdens intersect with race, age, income, and infrastructure.
“Community science data and so-called ‘hard’ data don’t have to compete,” Boone said. “Lived experience complements quantitative measurement.” For Boone, storytelling with data means going beyond a static map. It means inviting residents to help interpret what those measurements mean within the context of their own neighborhoods.
UrbanHeatATL is one of the most visible expressions of that philosophy.
Heat as Environmental Justice
Urban heat islands form when cities replace trees and soil with asphalt, concrete, and heat-retaining building materials. The result is not just discomfort. Heat intensifies asthma, raises energy bills, and strains public health systems. In Atlanta, exposure is not evenly distributed. Southwest neighborhoods show higher urban heat exposure and correlate with higher populations of black residents and older adults.
UrbanHeatATL emerged as a cross-institutional collaboration among Georgia Tech, Spelman College, and the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance. The project also connects directly with the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Resilience, ensuring that data feeds into city planning conversations.
The initiative began during COVID, when researchers and community partners identified heat mapping as outdoor work that could continue safely during social distancing. What started as a practical adaptation evolved into a five-year civic research effort focused on environmental and climate justice.
Hyperlocal Measurement
UrbanHeatATL’s methodology is straightforward but powerful. The team places low-cost temperature sensors in the hands of trained community members. These sensors connect to smartphones and allow users to upload temperature data along specific routes, capturing neighborhood-level differences in heat.
This hyperlocal approach addresses a major gap. Official weather stations measure temperature at fixed points. Remote sensing relies heavily on modeling. Neither method reflects how heat feels on a specific sidewalk at 3 PM in July.
“Anyone can be trained to use the sensors,” Boone said. That openness reshapes who participates in knowledge production. Residents do not simply supply labor. They help define the dataset.
K–12 students have also participated by mapping temperatures around their schools. That involvement adds another layer of data while expanding climate literacy and civic engagement at an early age.
Over time, the project has generated far more than temperature readings. It has sparked conversations about where cooling centers should be located, how tree canopy correlates with heat exposure, and how energy burden intersects with climate vulnerability.
Workshops as Civic Design
Boone’s role extends beyond analytics. She designs participatory workshops that invite community members to interpret findings themselves.
In recent sessions, more than forty community members gathered to explore volunteer-collected temperature data alongside maps of tree canopy, heat vulnerability, and sociodemographic indicators. Participants first discussed their lived experiences of heat in Atlanta. They annotated maps with questions about where extreme heat concentrates, which public spaces feel cooler, and how heat affects their commutes and home life.
Then they layered in temperature data collected between noon and 6 PM, comparing hotspots with green infrastructure and population patterns.
“We have to ask who the map is for,” Boone said. Environmental scientists, emergency planners, City Council members, and K–12 students each need different frames. By organizing participants into stakeholder groups, the workshops make that explicit. Small teams built maps tailored to specific audiences, using data to tell stories that can inform policy, emergency response, and neighborhood action.
In one exercise, participants connected higher temperatures with higher asthma rates, energy burdens, and concentrations of low-income households and residents of color. The conversation quickly moved from observation to recommendation. Groups called for increased investment in green space in neighborhoods that have historically lacked it, emphasizing equitable distribution of trees and cooling infrastructure. The map became a platform for civic dialogue.
Building Civic Capacity
Boone’s long-term goal goes beyond producing polished visualizations. “We want communities to collect, interpret, and advocate with their own data,” she said.
That ambition requires accessible tools, clear communication, and sustained partnerships. UrbanHeatATL uses low-cost sensors, mobile-friendly uploads, and open visualization platforms to lower barriers to participation. It also relies on continued collaboration across universities, nonprofits, students, and city officials.
At Tech Square, innovation often conjures images of startups or new technologies. Boone’s civic research offers another model. It looks like residents walking their neighborhoods with temperature sensors. It looks like transparent maps spread across tables, layered with indicators of vulnerability and tree canopy. It looks like communities using data to argue for cooling centers, green infrastructure, and healthier streets.
In those moments, data becomes civic infrastructure.