Program Administrators
Faculty Committee
Aneesha Dharwadker
Assistant Professor, Illinois School of Architecture and Department of Landscape Architecture
Aneesha Dharwadker is an assistant professor of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her teaching and scholarship examine globalization, colonialism, and social issues in relation to the built environment. She is the founder of Chicago Design Office and editor of Transect, a journal of design criticism.
Connor O’Shea
Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture
Conor O’Shea is an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. His design, research, and teaching focus on the urbanization of the hinterland, operational landscapes, logistics landscapes, and the geography of freight transportation in North America. He directs the Landscape Strategies Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is founding principal of Hinterlands Urbanism and Landscape.
Eric Benson
Associate Professor Graphic Design, School of Art and Design
Eric Benson was born in Arizona and raised in Mid-Michigan where he later received his BFA in graphic and industrial design from the University of Michigan in 1998. He worked professionally as a UI/UX designer at Razorfish and Texas Instruments before he received his MFA in design from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. His MFA thesis became the internationally recognized and award-winning sustainable design website www.re-nourish.org. His work with Re-nourish translated into an academic career where he currently is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research and teaching at Illinois laid the foundation to create the Fresh Press Agri-Fiber Paper Lab. Fresh Press explores the potential of papermaking to be zero waste, environmentally sustainable, and a catalyst for a thriving local economy.
Benson has published and lectured internationally on the importance of sustainable design. His work has also garnered numerous design awards and has been seen in notable venues like The Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Hammer Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and RISD.
Fang Fang
Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning
Fang Fang researches urban forests, land use, and environmental planning. She uses geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, machine learning, and spatial modeling to understand urban tree canopy and greenspace for environmental justice. She examines urban tree species distribution using high spatial resolution images, as well as object-based image analysis to describe urban tree health. She has taught courses in physical geography, GIS, making sustainable design studios, urban informatics, and data science for planners. Fang received her PhD in geography from West Virginia University in 2019. She earned her master’s degree in environmental engineering from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology and a bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning and resource management from Beijing Forestry University.
Daniel Schneider
Past Sustainable Design Faculty Program Administrator
Retired Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Daniel Schneider was a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and faculty program coordinator for the Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Design. He has been an ecologist and environmental historian whose research focused on the interrelations between natural and human systems in sustainable planning and management. He completed a book on the history of the biological sewage treatment plant that examined the interrelations between the “natural” and “artificial” in this critical infrastructure. He investigated the ecology and management of bed bugs in U.S. cities, examining bed bug infestations as an issue of environmental justice. His teaching covered ecological applications to planning, watershed planning, urban ecology, and environmental history. He is a furniture designer and maker, focusing on using locally and sustainably grown hardwoods.
Affiliated Faculty
Architecture
- Christina Bollo—green affordable housing and equity
- Mohamed Boubekri—indoor environments, health, and sustainable architecture
- Aaron Paul Brakke—public space design and design for climatic conditions
- Benjamin Bross—urbanism and material culture
- Sara Bartumeus Ferré—architecture and landscape architecture
- Lynne Dearborn—health and equity
- Ralph Hammann—energy and architectural design
- Kevin Hinders—urbanism
- Tait Johnson—history of architecture and materiality
- Paul Hardin Kapp—historic preservation
- Sudarshan Krishnan—lightweight and transformable structures
- John C. Stallmeyer—history and theory of architecture
- Mark Taylor—solar design and renewable materials
Art and Design
- Teri Weissman—history of design
- Billie Theide—sustainable materials, metals
- Molly Briggs—design theory
- Karin Hodgin Jones—digital art and sustainability
- Deana McDonagh—empathic design
- Chiara Vincenzi—sustainable fashion design
Dance
- Jennifer Monson—urban ecologies and movement
Landscape Architecture
- Brian Deal—sustainable planning and design, modeling, and climate
- David L. Hays—landscape theory and history
- Kelley Lemon, PLA, LEED AP, EDAC—vernacular design
- Mary Pat McGuire—water and sustainable landscapes
- Pollyanna Rhee—modern environmentalism
- William C. Sullivan—landscapes and health
- Stephen Sears—landscape design
- D. Fairchild Ruggles—landscape history
Music
- Michael Silvers—traditional ecological knowledge and materials
Theatre
- Kim Curtis—sustainable theatre and costume design
Urban and Regional Planning
- Arnab Chakraborty—land use and environmental planning
- Lindsay Braun—sustainable transportation
- Bumsoo Lee—land use and transportation
- Fang Fang—geographic information systems and urban forest
- Alice Novak—historic preservation
- Lou Turner—community organizing
- Magdalena Novoa—historic preservation
- Dustin Allred—urban sustainability