The Scientific Committee is the body that whilst not directly involved in the organisation of the conference, will ensure its quality through decisions on the final programme, the procedure of abstract acceptance, the organisation and chairing of sessions and also the mentoring of the Young Researchers Workshop. All members of the Committee are well known members of IAPS or directly linked to the theme of this Conference.
Members include:
Prof Emeritus Aleya Abdel-Hadi • Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University
Aleya Abdel-Hadi is Emeritus Professor of Interior Architecture at the Faculty of Fine-Arts, Cairo, Helwan University and a member of IAPS Board. Her research interest is on socio-spatial organization in the field of housing and the urban residential areas in and around Cairo; she also worked on the design education related to the issue of creativity.
Prof Marino Bonaiuto • Sapienza University, Rome Italy
Environmental and architectural psychology, particularly: environmental quality perception and evaluation; place and social identity; food; place reputation. Psychology of Communication, particularly: bodily communication; organizational communication (internal, external employer branding); political communication; personal reputation. Work and organizational psychology, particularly: organizational behaviours and social identity; individual assessment and development; executive and managerial coaching; corporate reputation.
Dr Giuseppe Carus • Universita Rome Tre
Giuseppe Carrus, PhD, is Researcher in Social Psychology at the Faculty of Education of the University of Roma Tre, Italy. His research interests focus on pro-environmental attitudes, place-identity processes and attitude-behavior relations. He is author of several publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, edited volumes, and chapters. He is member of the Board of the International Association for People-environment Studies (IAPS), and member of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP).
Dr Fei Chen • Liverpool University
Fei Chen is a lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design in the School of Architecture, University of Liverpool. She was previously working as a researcher in the University of Strathclyde on projects of Chinese urban morphology and Sensory Urbanism. She is interested in topics like urban morphology, urban design theories and practice, design coding and legislation, urban regeneration and conservation.
Dr Tony Craig • The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen UK
I am currently carrying out research on the psychological aspects of nature-experiences, and have a particular interest in how 'natural' experiences compare to other everyday activities, including those activities related to pro-environmental behaviour. My other research falls under the general heading of 'environmental attitudes and energy behaviours', which includes a large-scale study of energy feedback and behaviour change.
Prof Carole Despres • Laval University, Quebec City Canada
I am Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Laval University in Québec City, Canada. My research and teaching deal with residential environments and behaviours, and favours back and forth between fundamental research, action research, and design. Work includes the development of processes aimed at bridging the gap between knowledge and practice, namely through consensus-building and participatory design.
Dr Eddie Edgerton • University of West of Scotland
Edward is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of Scotland. His research interests are in environment-behaviour research relating to children (particularly school environments) and environmental design for dementia. He is also interested in healthcare environments in general and he has conducted research on pro-environmental behaviour such as home-composting schemes. Recent projects have included evaluations of secondary school building programmes in Scotland, parental perceptions of the importance of nursery school environments and an assessment of redesigned spaces within a psychiatric hospital.
Prof Ricardo Garcia Mira • Universidade da Coruna, Spain
Dr Ricardo García Mira is Professor of Social and Environmental Psychology at the University of Corunna (Spain). He is a Visiting Reader at the Department of Psychology at the University of Surrey (UK) and he has been an International Visiting Scholar in Texas State University, Visiting Professor in Tallinn University (Estonia), UNAM Mexico, University of Timisoara, to give seminars and to participate in their master/doctoral teaching activities. He has been part of the Board of IAPS (2000-2008) and he is the European Editor of the JAPR. He has been an active researcher over the last 20 years, evaluating the environmental impact of social problems (i.e. Prestige disaster, 2006: Fires in the Northwest of Spain, 2006), as well as interested in theoretical aspects of environmental attitudes and behavior predicting models.
Dr David Grierson • University of Strathclyde
Dr David Grierson is Director of Postgraduate Research and Knowledge Exchange in Architecture and Director of the Faculty-wide Postgraduate Sustainable Engineering Programme. David’s research interest in sustainability has led to the publication of around 50, mostly international, publications in this area. David is active in the promotion of knowledge exchange through increased engagement with business, industry, the professions and other institutions.
Prof Liisa Horelli • Aalto University, Centre for Urban & Regional Studies
Liisa Horelli, PhD, Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Aalto University, Finland, is an environmental psychologist who has conducted research on participatory planning and community development with children, young and elderly people. Dr. Horelli has also done evaluations in the field of housing and planning and created the concept of psychological presence as a criteria of the supportive dwelling environment. Recently, her research has focused on the methodology of participatory e-planning.
Dr Corina Ilin • West University of Timisoara
Dr Corina Ilin is an Associate Professor of Environmental Psychology, Applied Social Psychology and Economical Psychology at the West University of Timisoara, Department of Psychology. She also teaches courses in the Department of Architecture of the same University. She has obtained her PhD in Psychology from the University of Lasi (Romania) in 2005. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Corunna, Spain (2005, 2006), and she is the coordinator of the Jean Monnet Grant: A Young Researchers’ view of Romanian Steps towards EU Integration: Analysing Pro-Environmental and Anti-Corruption Policies
Prof Sigrun Kabisch • Centre of Envrionmental Research -UFZ
Head of the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig, Germany, and professor at the University of Leipzig. She holds a PhD in urban sociology and did her habilitation in urban geography. Her main research fields are: interdependencies between the social, built, and natural environments in urban landscapes, urban vulnerability concerning extreme weather events, quality of life in shrinking cities, urban restructuring with respect to demographic change and socio-spatial differentiation. Her work is embedded in international comparative studies.
Prof Florian Kaiser • Otto-von-Guericke Universitat Magdeburg, Germany
Florian G. Kaiser is associate professor of social and environmental psychology at Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. In addition to social and environmental psychology, he teaches conservation psychology and social science methods. His research interests include the attitude-behavior relationship, behavior measurement and its modification, environmental knowledge & identity, restorative environments, privacy issues in various environments, and policy support particularly with respect to nature preservation.
Dr Peter Kellett • Newcastle University
I am a qualified architect with a Masters degree in Social Anthropology and a PhD which combines both disciplines. My research focuses on the interrelationship between people and their environments, particularly disadvantaged groups who inhabit or create environments in conditions of acute resource constraint or relative powerlessness.
Prof Mats Leiberg • Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Mats Lieberg is a professor of landscape planning, specializing in urban sociology. His special areas of expertise are urban studies and urban theory, youth culture and youth studies, housing research and urban recreational studies. His current research concerns spatial and ethnographic studies of social networks, informal structures and urban encounters in public spaces.
Dr Maria Lewicka • Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw
My education is in psychology (cognitive and social psychology). My areas of interest/expertise related to environmental psychology include:
(iii) theories of place, place attachment and place identity,
(ii) social capital and processes of social engagement
(iii) collective memory of places.
Dr Alice Mathers • University of Sheffield
Alice Mathers is a Landscape Architect and Research Associate in the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her work is driven by an interdisciplinary approach to people-environment interactions, which straddles the academic boundaries of landscape architecture, planning, sociology, disability studies, human geography and environmental psychology. Her research with disabled people seeks to challenge current professional, academic and societal constraints that inhibit the involvement of underrepresented communities in environmental planning and design.
Michael Mehaffy • Council of European Urbanism
Michael Mehaffy is a visiting fellow at the University of Strathclyde, visiting faculty associate at Arizona State University, and member of the editorial boards of three journals in sustainable urban development. His areas of specialty and interest include urban morphology and morphogenetics, pedestrian networks, greenhouse gas emissions, evidence-based design, design theory and philosophy of design.
Gordon Murray • University of Strathclyde
Gordon Murray is principal of Gordon Murray Architects, having practiced in Glasgow for thirty years. He was appointed Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, at the University of Strathclyde in 2007. He has over the last ten years also occasionally taught in Schools of Architecture in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Berlin. He was President of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland 2003-5 and a Trustee of the Lighthouse-Scotland’s National Centre for Architecture, Design and the City from 2003-09. He was also elected Chair of SCHOSA – The Council of Heads of Schools of Architecture across UK 2010/12.
Dr Helena Nordh • Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Helena is a lecturer and researcher at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Landscape Planning. Main research interests focus on urban and natural restorative settings and in particular the restorative components of small urban parks. Methodological developments involve use of conjoint analysis, eye tracking, regression and mediation analysis aimed generally at investigating the social well-being of urban populations within an underlying theme of social inclusivity.
Dr Maria Nordstrom • Stockholm University
My Research interest in environmental psychology is on the emergence and changes of environmental behaviour, experiences and interests during different life phases, in particular childhood and youth and how they are influenced by social and cultural conditions. The Concept of place attachment is another interest. Present studies concern the concept of child friendly environments as well as the uses of child impact assessments in urban planning. Member of the IAPS Board 1998-2002: Coordinator of the IAPS network: Children, Youth and Environment/CYE 2000-2008
Prof Sergio Porta • University of Strathclyde
Dr. Sergio Porta is Professor of Urban Design and Director of the Urban Design Studies Unit at the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. Recent research is mainly oriented to the definition of procedures, attitudes and tools for sustainable/human/adaptive urban analysis and design, ranging from GIS-based space analysis to sustainable community design, transportation planning and traffic calming techniques to strategies for safety and liveability in the public domain.
Dr Riklef Rambow • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe Germany
Riklef Rambow is a trained psychologist who currently teaches Architectural Theory at BTU Cottbus and Communication of Architecture at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the perception, use, and evaluation of architecture, as well as on the dialogue between user and expert in architecture and city planning.
Dr Jenny Roe • Heriot – Watt University
Dr Jenny Roe is a lecturer and researcher with VEW (Vision, Environment and Wellbeing), School of Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University. She has three overlapping areas of research interest: restorative and supportive environments (indoors and outdoors, built and natural) and their links with well-being; applied vision research, which explores visual function in different situations and its relationship to quality of life, including light and circadian rhythms; methodologies for environment-behaviour research (affordance theory, personal project analysis, conjoint analysis).
Dr Ombretta Romice • University of Strathclyde
Dr Ombretta Romice is Senior Lecturer in Urban design at the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and President of IAPS. Her areas of expertise and interest are urban design, urban morphology, user participation in design. She holds a PhD in urban design and a PostDoc in housing and regeneration sponsored by the European Union.
Dr Elena Sautkina • Queen Mary University, School of Geography, London
Dr Elena Sautkina is Research Fellow on the National Evaluation of Healthy Towns Programme at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research interests include: environmental determinants of health and well-being; interrelationships between research, policy and practice; community development; urban regeneration; crime and environment; environmental awareness; pro-environmental behaviour; environmental education; climate change; religious values and environmental protection.
Prof Petra Schweizer-Ries • University of Magdeburg
Petra Schweizer-Ries (PhD) is apl. Professor at the Saarland University in the field of Sustainability Science. She leads the environmental psychologist research group “Forschungsgruppe Umweltpsychology” working on different social aspects of energy distribution and introduction in rural and grid-connected communities. From 2002 until 2010 she has been a Junior Professor for Environmental Psychology at the University of Magdeburg. Her first 10 years after the study of Psychology she worked with engineers and physicists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) on the development and introduction of solar systems into society in countries like Argentina, Indonesia, Marokko and Nepal.
Dr Ian Simkins • Experiential Landscape
My professional career has been complimented by research and teaching in both Further Education (2004 – 2007), and in Higher Education (since 2000). Research interests involve developing methodology for revealing spatial aspects of the place experience of primary school aged children in ways relevant to landscape design. I am co-founder of Experiential Landscape, with colleague Dr Kevin Thwaites. Experiential Landscape co-ordinates and employs a person-centred process generating socially sustainable solutions that benefit how people relate to each other and the outdoor settings they routinely use. I am a member of the Executive Management Board of the Centre for the Study of Childhood and Youth, at the University of Sheffield. The centre is a multi-disciplinary organisation with international partners to create collaborative research on cross-cultural issues.
Prof Chris Spencer • University of Sheffield
Chris Spencer (Emeritus Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of Sheffield). Journal of Environmental Psychology editorial board from its inception; ditto Children's Geographies. Specialist areas: children and their environments; settings for music performance, and audiences.
Mari Sundli-Tveit • The Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Mari Sundli Tveit, Associate professor, Dept of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning, Norwegian University of life Sciences. Main research interests are landscape ecology, landscape perception and preference, landscapes and human health and well-being, visual landscape assessment, and how people’s landscape perception can be included in landscape planning and policy.
Dr Kevin Thwaites • University of Sheffield
Kevin teaches and researches landscape architecture and urban design at the University of Sheffield, UK. Principal interests include the philosophy and theory of landscape architecture and urban design, restorative environments and the social and experiential value of urban open spaces. Ongoing research and publication in these areas is focused on spatial organisation and human experience in urban landscape design and contributes to discourse in urban social sustainability.
Dr Clare Twigger-Ross • Collingwood Environmental Planning Ltd
Since gaining her PhD in Environmental Psychology in 1994 at the University of Surrey, UK, Clare has worked in academia (University of Surrey) and the Environment Agency for England and Wales. Her work is focused on the social aspects of flood risk management, social impact assessment, environmental policy and decision-making and particularly the use of social science evidence and participation processes. A current focus of interest is on developing measures of social vulnerability in the context of flooding, social impact assessment, and climate change as well as a continued interest in place and identity in the context of places threatened by environmental risks.
Prof David Uzzell • University of Surrey
David Uzzell is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey where he leads the Environmental Psychology Research Group. His principal research interests focus on public understandings of climate change, critical psychological approaches to changing consumption and production practices, environmental risk, and identity and the past.
Prof Catharine Ward-Thompson • Edinburgh College of Art
I am a Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of OPENspace Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh. My research focuses on inclusive access to outdoor environments, environment-behaviour interactions, historic landscapes and contemporary needs, landscape design for older people, for children and for teenagers, and salutogenic environments. Since 2001, I have been Director of OPENspace – the research centre for inclusive access to outdoor environments – based at Edinburgh College of Art and Heriot-Watt University.
Patrick Devine Wright • University of Essex
Main research interests include: understanding the symbolic and affective dimensions of places, particularly the concepts of place attachment and place identity; investigating social and psychological aspects of siting new energy infrastructure such as wind farms and overhead power lines, including ‘NIMBYism’ and public engagement; understanding the motivation for pro-environmental and pro-social actions, particularly conceptions of citizenship applied to energy and environmental problems.