Dr. Masood Parvania is currently the Director of Utah Smart Energy Laboratory (U-Smart), Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah. His current research, funded by NSF, DOE, ONR and power industry, looks at enhancing sustainability and cyber-physical resilience of power, water and electrified transportation infrastructure. Dr. Parvania serves as Associate Editor for the IEEE...

Dr. Divya Chandrasekhar is an urban planner and an Assistant Professor in City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah. Her work focuses on the factors, processes, and dynamics of community recovery from environmental change events, with a view towards building local resilience capacity. This research takes a ‘living with disasters’ approach to community planning which emphasizes the intrinsic and...

Amanda D. Smith is an Energy Systems Engineer in the Buildings & Connected Systems Group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She was previously an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah, where she led the Site-Specific Energy Systems research group, creating data-driven and physics-based energy models for buildings and facilities. Her work involves operational optimization, occupant...

Director Dr. Sarah Hinners is a landscape and urban ecologist, and a faculty member in the University of Utah Department of City & Metropolitan Planning. She has a lifelong fascination with the relationship between people and place, with how humans and landscapes mutually shape one another. This relationship is the basis of ecological planning, and it also underlies the still-developing...

I am interested in the analysis and visualization of large and complex data. My research expertise lies in the theoretical, algorithmic, and application aspects of data analysis and data visualization, with a focus on topological techniques. My research interests include: topological data analysis, data visualization, computational topology, computational geometry, machine learning and data mining. Previously, I have worked on projects...

Mira Locher’s research and teaching focus on design practices and processes, community engagement through architectural design, and on Japanese architecture, gardens, and design. She is the author of three books, Super Potato Design, Traditional Japanese Architecture, and Zen Gardens. She is an avid traveler with a keen interest in traditional building crafts and vernacular settlements.

My research interests include environmental hazards, emergency management, transportation, and geographic information science. More specifically, I have long running interests in wildfire warning and evacuation systems, as typified by recent fires in Utah, California and Greece.  

I am an ecosystem ecologist whose research examines how global changes (climate change, urbanization, altered flow regimes, and non-native species invasions) affect microbial community dynamics and ecosystem processes, such as nutrient cycling and decomposition. I also am interested in river and riparian restoration. I use a variety of approaches, including field and laboratory studies and syntheses of scientific literature....

I am a mathematical biologist who works on modeling complex systems ranging from urban, behavioral, evolutionary and community ecology to cell biology, immunology, epidemiology of viruses and antibiotic resistant bacteria, asthma, and cancer biology.

As an academic, my ultimate goal is to enhance the role of planning organizations, non-profits, universities, and resident associations as valuable community resources to advance diversity, access, and inclusion

Dr. Steve Burian is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Utah. His professional goals are to advance water system resiliency and sustainability through research and inspire learners with his passionate, engaged approach to education. Dr. Burian currently is the Director of the University of Utah Water Center, the Project Director of the USAID-funded U.S.-Pakistan...