CAPLA Equity, Diversity & Inclusion News & Headlines

Jesus Nava was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, and grew up in San Diego, California. He was drawn to UArizona and the Bachelor of Architecture because of the beauty of the Sonoran Desert and its many outdoor recreation opportunities—as well as UArizona’s “great basketball program.”

Julia Smith isn’t your typical design student, and for Puente—the Hispanic student organization of CAPLA that she recently led—that’s a good thing. Though Smith is a second-year Bachelor of Architecture student, she’s six years older than most of her classmates. She’s also married to a member of the U.S. military.

Research by Seth Asare Okyere, CAPLA visiting assistant professor of urban planning, and Louis Kusi Frimpong, Matthew Abunyewah and Stephen Kofi Diko, show that digitalization initiatives in Ghana need to take local factors and engagement into account if they’re going to succeed.

A recent paper by Seth Asare Okyere, CAPLA visiting assistant professor of urban planning, and Stephen Kofie Diko, assistant professor at the University of Memphis, argues that the solutions residents in poor, marginalized, informal and crowded urban areas come up with to make everyday urban life livable are a form of social innovation.

CAPLA Heritage Conservation Program Project Director Helen Erickson and graduate students Sarah McDowell and Teresa DeKoker have been instrumental in efforts to preserve Camp Naco, a borderlands Buffalo Soldier camp located near Bisbee, Arizona, resulting in awards for their story map and new funding to preserve the site.

Though the pandemic was a challenge for many, for CAPLA Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design Eduardo Guerrero it presented a new opportunity—connecting ideas from urbanism experts around the world through conversations, resulting in his urban podcast, Crossing City Limits. Learn more in this fascinating interview.

Senior Lecturer in Architecture Oscar Lopez, who joined CAPLA in 2016, teaches undergraduate and graduate architecture studios while practicing architecture and conducting research on what he calls the haptics of place, "essentially, combining both the real and the unreal qualities of architecture."

UArizona Hispanic Serving Institution Fellow Sandra Bernal Cordova, who joined CAPLA in 2018 as a lecturer, uses her built environment research, community service and cross-campus collaborations to inform the classes she teaches and co-teaches, which include Water Efficiency in Building, Equitable Cities and the Sustainable Built Environments Capstone.

This summer, graduate student Zsalina Allen participated in a sustainable transportation study abroad program in Denmark and Sweden. She documented her travels in a fascinating and entertaining blog. We followed up to learn more about her experience in Scandinavia, as well her UArizona MS Urban Planning experience.

Last spring, Master of Science in Urban Planning students in Associate Professor Kristina Curran's capstone course published the report Thriving Transit Corridors: Driving Transit-Oriented Development Along Tucson’s Broadway Corridor, which has been awarded the 2022 Student Project Award by the Arizona chapter of the American Planning Association.

Seth Asare Okyere joined the college this semester as visiting assistant professor of urban planning as part of CAPLA's inaugural emerging faculty fellow program. Learn more about Seth, including his current research on socio-spatial and environmental aspects of everyday southern urban experiences in relation to social equity and community resilience planning.

CAPLA undergraduate architecture students Kaya Orona, Celestin Amani and Anisa Hermosillo held externships at The M Group in Washington, D.C., Onyx Creative in Tucson, Arizona, and erstad ARCHITECTS in Boise, Idaho last spring break. Learn more about their experiences and the benefits externships offer for both students and sponsoring firms.