Faculty Research & Creative Scholarship

The essential research of the CAPLA faculty goes well beyond the fields of design, development, planning and sustainability to the core of how we can live better lives in the built environment.

Faculty research solves problems, impacts decisions and shapes policy. Read our CAPLA faculty research stories:

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Ladd Keith moderating a break out discussion during the 2024 Southern Arizona Heat Summit

City of Tucson Adopts Comprehensive Heat Action Roadmap with UArizona Collaboration

Collaborative efforts from City of Tucson leadership and staff, community stakeholders, and University of Arizona faculty to address escalating heat challenges have resulted in the adoption of a newly crafted Heat Action Roadmap and Heat Protection Ordinance for city workers and contractors.

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Sign in the desert warns of extreme heat to travelers

New federally funded center will rely on UArizona expertise to help communities manage extreme heat

A new federal initiative will rely on University of Arizona research and scholarship to help communities across the U.S. create policies and take action to mitigate and manage extreme heat. Ladd Keith, an associate professor in CAPLA, will lead UArizona's involvement in the center.

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Symposium

International Symposium Unites Scholars, Artists, and Architects to Remember Spaces of Internment

The second annual Remembering Spaces of Internment (ReSI) International Symposium convened an interdisciplinary network to study internment sites globally. Co-founder Beth Weinstein discussed ReSI's goals, emphasizing the need to analyze and remember the systemic nature of internment

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Esther M. Sternberg

In the News: Dr. Esther Sternberg Discusses Office Design Impact on Wellbeing, Productivity

University of Arizona professor of medicine Dr. Esther Sternberg, director of the Institute on Place, Well-being and Performance and research director at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, shares her research examining how work environments effect people's health and productivity.

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Laura Carr

Office of the Provost Grants Senior Lecturer Laura Carr $200,000 for Native People's Design Coalition

Laura Carr, a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the College of Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture, is part of a team that secured a $200,000 grant for the Native People's Design Coalition. This grant will support their efforts in collaborating with tribal communities to plan and design sustainable and resilient built environments.

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HUD grant recipients

Drachman Institute Will Help Establish New Center to Study Housing Equity and Sustainability with $3M Federal Grant

Researchers from the UArizona Drachman Institute, along with colleagues from ASU, NAU and the University of New Mexico, will research housing security, climate and health with a focus on Hispanic and underserved communities in the arid Southwest.

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Seth Asare Okyere

Nature Sustainability Article by CAPLA Emerging Faculty Fellow Proposes Model for Sustainability Transition in the Global South

Seth Okyere, a CAPLA visiting assistant professor and Emerging Faculty Fellow, contributed to an article published this summer in Nature Sustainability, which publishes significant original research about sustainability, including policy dimensions and possible solutions.

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Noémie Despland-Lichtert

Teaching as Mediation: Noémie Despland-Lichtert, Emerging Faculty Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture

Noémie Despland-Lichtert joined CAPLA this fall as our second Emerging Faculty Fellow. An accomplished teacher, researcher and practitioner, she spent the last year in Brussels and has also worked at Taliesin West, the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Architecture Department of Getty Research Institute, among others.