University of Oregon

The University of Oregon is a comprehensive public research university committed to exceptional teaching, discovery, and service. We work at a human scale to generate big ideas. As a community of scholars, we help individuals question critically, think logically, reason effectively, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live ethically.


Related Centers

Institute for a Sustainable Environment ISE is a center for innovative, interdisciplinary research at the nexus of ecological, economic, and social sustainability. The institute produces information to help resolve complex problems and enable people to sustain the economies and environmental systems that support their communities.

Sustainable Cities Initiative SCI is an applied thinktank focusing on sustainability in cities. The center works across disciplines inside and out of academia to re-define the delivery of higher education, conduct applied and policy-relevant research, and serve the public in the design and development of sustainable, resilient, and livable cities.


Faculty Affiliates

Architecture and Allied Arts

Christoph Lindner Dean Christoph’s recent research and teaching has focused on how contemporary discourses surrounding creativity, sustainability, and smart urbanism shape the making (and unmaking) of the built environment, urban regeneration, spatial reordering, urban sustainability, and cultural citizenship across, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Chirstoph is particularly interested in the interrelations between cities, globalization, and issues of political ecology, sustainability, and creative practice, which he approaches from a comparative, transnational perspective.

Architecture

Brook Muller, Professor; Director (Certificate Program in Ecological Design); Core Faculty Member (Environmental Studies Program). Brook teaches design studios as well as courses in architectural theory, urban ecological design and sustainability. His research examines synergies between ecological processes and urban development. Brook considers relationships between architects’ initial conceptual organizational ideas and the environmental responsiveness of what is built.

Nico Larco, Associate Professor; Co-Director (Sustainable Cities Initiative). Nico teaches City Growth/City Design, Spatial Composition, Globalization and Place, as well as design studios. His research focuses on sustainable urban design, active transportation, street design, and how urban design affects the sustainability of buildings. He recently developed the Sustainable Urban Design Framework that identifies sustainability goals and organizes urban design elements and approaches based on these goals and a project’s scale. He is currently working on a book on the subject with Routledge that is due out in early 2017.

Business

Izabel Loinaz, Instructor; Program Manager (Center for Sustainable Business Practices). Izabel is a senior executive and educator with 18+ year track record of driving superior results across entrepreneurial, corporate, and municipal ventures leveraging subject matter expertise in sports and recreation, healthcare and sustainability. She is a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) certified sustainability reporter, with extensive experience in business development, strategic marketing, operational design, and sustainable business practices.

Geography

Dan Gavin, Associate Professor. Daniel teaches The Natural Environment, Biogeography, Fire and Natural Disturbances, and Long Term Environmental Change. He is a biogeographer who is interested in understanding present and past responses of Earth’s biota to climate change. Specifically, his research focuses on the reconstruction of forest composition and natural disturbances over recent history (hundreds of years) using interdisciplinary research designs.

Patricia McDowell, Professor. Patricia teaches Watershed Science and Policy, Fluvial Geomorphology, Geomorphology, and a seminar on River Planform. Her research focuses on the effects of human impacts on streams and watersheds; fluvial and eolian geomorphology and sedimentology; the effects of quaternary climatic change on landforms, soils, hydrology, and vegetation; and geoarchaeology.

Landscape Architecture

Jacques Abelman, Associate Professor. Jacques’s teaching focuses on multi-functional green infrastructure systems, urban agroforestry, infrastructural ecology, and the emerging field of landscape democracy. His aim as a designer and researcher is to envision the future city through the potential of landscape. Jacques’s research and built work seeks to weave together spatial design, social justice, and food systems into the fabric of public space and infrastructure.

Bart Johnson, Department Head; Professor. Bart teaches Applied Ecology, Landscape Architecture Research, Landscape Ecology, design studios and graduate seminars. His work focuses on integrating people, design and land use with native ecosystems and evolutionary processes. Current research focuses on climate adaptation planning, biodiversity conservation, urban ecosystems and ecological restoration.

Yekang Ko, Assistant Professor. Yekang teaches classes, seminars, and studios in landscape planning and analysis and sustainable urban planning/design for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Her current research interests are urban energy planning, climate-responsive urban design, green infrastructure performance and climate literacy education.

Kory Russel, Assistant Professor (Environmental Studies). Kory teaches Design for a Sustainable World, Sustainable Design Principles and Practice and tech workshops in water and urbanization. His primary research focuses on planning, designing, and implementing sustainable water and sanitation (WASH) services in low-and-middle-income countries. Additionally, Kory is the co-founder of the “re.source sanitation” research initiative originally funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focused on extremely low-cost, container-based sanitation services in dense informal settlements.

Law

Adell Amos, Professor; Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Adell teaches regularly in the nationally-ranked Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, including courses in Water Law, Federal Administrative Law, Environmental Conflict Resolution, and Oregon Water Law and Policy. Her research emphasizes the jurisdictional governance structures that are deployed for water resources management in the United States and internationally. Adell focuses on the relationship between federal and state governments on water resources management, the role of administrative agencies in setting national, state, and local water policy, the role of law in developing water policy and responding to change, and the impact of stakeholder participation in water resource decision-making.

Heather Brinton, Pro Tem Instructor; Director (Environmental and Natural Resources Law). Heather has co-taught Climate Law & Policy, currently teaches and is the faculty supervisor for the environmental law externships. As the director of the Environmental and Natural Resources law program, Heather administers seven interdisciplinary projects: the Conservation Trust Project, ; the Energy Law & Policy Project, ; the Food Resiliency Project, ; the Global Environmental Democracy Project, ; the Native Environmental Sovereignty Project, ; the Oceans, Coasts, and Watersheds Project, ; and the Sustainable Land Use Project, . All of these projects conduct research and analysis that provide innovative solutions to today’s environmental problems.

Mohsen Manesh, Associate Professor, School of Law; Faculty Director, Portland Program. Mohsen’s teaching and research interests focus on the intersection of corporate, contract and LLC law. He has authored articles in the Boston College Law Review and the Journal of Corporation Law, among others. His work has been cited in leading casebooks as well as by the nation’s top business law courts, including the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the Delaware Chancery Court.

Planning, Public Policy and Management

Rebecca Lewis, Assistant Professor. Rebecca teaches courses and seminars focusing on human settlements, green cities, issues of growth management, and public budget administration. Her research interests include land use policy, growth management, urban form, state and local public finance, and sustainable development.

Cassandra Moseley, Associate Vice Professor for Research; Research Professor and Director, Institute for a Sustainable Environment. The goal of Cassandra’s research at the University of Oregon is to understand the social and political dynamics that inhibit sustainable rural development and rural community resilience, and find solutions that will improve those dynamics. Her research has focused on natural resource governance, community-based forestry, American political development and the relationship between environment and development.

Marc Scholssberg, Professor; Co-Director (Sustainable Cities Initiative). Mark teaches, performs research and applies his work in the areas of sustainable transportation, livable community design, and the processes that can accelerate implementation of more sustainable policy and practice. He recently co-published Rethinking Streets: An Evidence-Based Guide to 25 Complete Street Transformationswhich uses evidence from completed street projects from around the United States in order to help communities imagine alternative futures for their streets.

Yizhao Yang, Associate Professor; Interim Program Director (Master of Community & Regional Planning Program). Yizhao teaches Land use Planning and Growth Management, Sustainable Urban Development, Plan-making: Scenario Planning, methods and courses focused on China. Her research interests include using residential satisfaction and perception to evaluate the impacts of land use patterns and urban design characteristics on residents’ wellbeing, as well as understanding the impacts of the built environment on people’s behavior, especially physical activities and children’s school travel.

Political Science and International Affairs

Dennis Galvan Vice Provost, International Affairs; Professor. Dennis has conducted field research since 1988 in a cluster of thirty villages in rural Senegal, and has conducted comparative filed research in Central Java, Indonesia, since 1999. His research explores competing models of development and multiple modernities; ethnic cooperation and nation building; political legitimation and governance; and the search for locally meaningful and sustainable models of social change in the global south.

Sociology

Richard York, Professor. Richard teaches courses and seminars on environmental sociology, statistics and research methods. His research focuses on how the structural characteristics of societies, including demographic, economic, and technological factors, influence levels of resource consumption and pollution emissions. He also is interested in connections between animals and societies.


News Stories

 

Architecture Professor Works to Keep History Afloat in Cairo

OREGON 2100: Projected Climatic and Ecological Changes | UO

Research study probes how warming will affect carbon in soils | UO

UO study finds what’s in the air at Eugene’s parks, parking lots

Earthworm-inspired design wins prize for UO landscape architects