Mengdi Li, UCI Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) student, received the 2018 Orange County-American Planning Association (OC-APA) Student Award for her Capstone Project Professional Report on “Urban Heat Island Effects Mitigation Strategies in Southern California.” Her client was the Planning Division of Community Development Department, City of Newport Beach, California, and her faculty advisor was Dr. Maura Allaire. This report quantifies the influence, the spatial and temporal characteristics, and the heat reduction ability of mitigation strategies of urban heat island effects in Southern California.