College of Architecture and Planning University of Colorado Denver

Dr. Joy Amulya works domestically and internationally to promote research and practice in the implementation, support, and evaluation of community and development initiatives. The primary focus of her work has been to apply her background in human development to creating innovative methods for learning and engaging knowledge generated from community-based work. At the Center for Reflective Community Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she co-developed a learning technology called Critical Moments Learning, which has been widely implemented in domestic and international settings. She has extensive experience designing and implementing strategies for learning and knowledge building with community organizations, project teams, philanthropic institutions, university courses, service learning teams, and research groups. Dr. Amulya has also directed large-scale participatory and empowerment evaluation projects, and trained students and faculty in methods for engaging the knowledge and experience of community practitioners. Her current work focuses on community health, indigenous knowledge, community-engaged research, HIV/AIDS, women’s empowerment, and issues related to children living in poverty.

Dr. Ernesto G. Arias is professor emeritus in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado. After his retirement from CU in the fall of 2006, he moved to Costa Rica where he serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Costa Rica’s National Institute of High Technology (CENAT). A two-time Fulbright Scholar and Associate Director of the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design at the University of Colorado, he takes an active interest in technologies that support place-based education and collaborative learning communities.

Dr. Sheridan Bartlett is a senior research associate in the Human Settlements Program at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London, England. She works mostly in South Asia supporting various organizations in research, staff training and program development related to children. , and is the managing editor of IIED’s journal, Environments and Urbanization. Recent work has focused on children and conflict in Nepal, community-based planning in post-tsunami reconstruction, and rebuilding after disasters with children in mind. Her publications include a UNICEF Innocenti Digest on urban children with David Satterthwaite, a review of children’s rights and the physical environment for Save the Children, Sweden, and articles in various journals on topics related to children’s environmental health and urban governance.

Dr. Sudeshna Chatterjee is a principal of Kaimal Chatterjee & Associates, New Delhi. She is the urban design consultant for the new capital city, Naya Raipur and involved in conceptualising and designing several new schools across India in diverse climatic and cultural contexts. Her research interests explore the intersections between childhood, child friendly places, and globalizing cities; children and young people’s agency and the production and consumption of place; and the politics of displacement and urban development. Dr. Chatterjee is a visiting faculty in the graduate department of Urban Design in the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and the News Archive Editor for Children, Youth and Environments.

Tori Derr is an Instructor with the University of Colorado in Environmental Design and Environmental Studies. For much of the past 20 years, Tori has worked in environmental education, participatory research, and youth engagement in food systems change, environmental and natural resources management. She currently conducts research on a diversity of topics related to sustainable design and children’s environments.

Dr. Michael Duffin is a co-founder of PEER Associates. He specialized in program evaluation and environmental sustainability in Antioch University's doctoral program in Leadership and Organizational Change. He was the project director of the Program Evaluation Team in the Craiglow Center for Applied Research and Policy of Antioch New England Institute and has over 15 years experience as an educator and administrator in environmental education programs in New England and the Pacific Northwest. PEER Associates is a small but diverse team that provides program evaluation and educational research services to projects seeking to promote environmental, place-based, or empowerment goals. It is committed to using a multiple-methods, utilization-focused, participatory evaluation process with the intention to help organizations better articulate their vision, align their resources and their rhetoric accordingly, and improve their programs based on evidence of program functioning and outcomes. PEER Associates also helps organizations build their own capacity to reflect on and internally evaluate programs.

David Driskell is the UNESCO Chair for “Growing Up in Cities” and the Executive Director of Community Planning and Sustainability at the City of Boulder. He is author of Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth (UNESCO/Earthscan, 2002) and numerous articles; teaches courses on community-based planning and action research; and has directed child and youth action research initiatives in Bangalore, New York, and Nairobi. In Nairobi, he is research advisor for the Growing Up in Nairobi project, a joint initiative of Cornell University, UN-HABITAT, UNESCO and several Nairobi youth organizations. His professional and scholarly work has received awards from the American Planning Association, the Environmental Design Research Association, and the American Society of Landscape Architects. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Karen S. Hollweg is a consultant to several national science and environmental education projects and 2008-2009 President of the North American Association for Environmental Education. Much of her 40-year career, which began as a classroom teacher in public middle schools and senior high schools, has been dedicated to bringing together the resources and expertise of schools, community-based organizations, scientists and higher education institutions to support teachers, students, and citizens of all ages in pursuing inquiry-based learning and addressing real-world issues. She was a district curriculum and instruction specialist and a Principal Investigator for seven different NSF-funded Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education (ESIE) projects, and has led nationwide teacher enhancement, curriculum development, and community-based projects. At the National Academies’ National Research Council she was responsible for the dissemination and implementation of the National Science Education Standards and directed professional development initiatives on inquiry and on the use of formative assessment for state science supervisors, school district leaders, and classroom teachers. As Fellow with the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, she designed and led professional development for urban school district leaders. Karen has authored and edited books on team-based professional development, understanding urban ecosystems, program evaluation, and the influence of the national standards. She has served on many NSF panels and several national advisory boards, as well as state and local organizations, and has extensive experience recruiting and training volunteers for local projects. In 2007, she was awarded an Indo-American Environmental Leadership Fulbright to study environmental education for sustainability.

Kelly Keena is the Science Teacher Leader for Achieve Academy in Mapleton Public Schools, a small school district along the urban corridor of north Denver, Colorado. Her experience in education began as a field instructor along the South Platte River for an environmental education organization whose mission was to connect children to nature. Her work in the past 15 years included connecting non-profits and public schools, working as a science teacher, and teaching science methods courses to pre-service teachers. Throughout each position, her interest in children’s sense of place and children’s experiences of nature developed into a doctoral dissertation study titled, “Portraiture of a Green Schoolyard: A Natural History of Children’s Experiences” based on theoretical work in ecological psychology. Her research interests include children’s experiences in public schoolyards and how green schoolyards help foster children’s sense of place.

Beverly Kingston is the Project Director of the Adams County Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, a 4-year $7.8 million grant serving 68,000 children and youth. Her research and professional interests focus on creating and sustaining social and physical environments that support healthy child and youth development. As a former Research Associate with CYE, Dr. Kingston directed a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research study measuring the effects of elementary school playground redevelopment on children’s physical activity levels, managed a Safe Routes to School program in the Westwood neighborhood in Southwest Denver, and coordinated Denver’s Child/Youth Friendly City Initiative. Prior to attending graduate school, she was the Director of the Gulfton Youth Development Program, a $2 million community initiative designed to prevent juvenile crime in a low-income, high crime, immigrant community in Southwest Houston. Her research interests center on the neighborhood context in relation to youth development and children’s physical activity and the built environment.

Dr. Tom Miller founded and is president of National Research Center, Inc., a well known social science research firm that operates world wide.  He received his Ph.D. in research and evaluation methods from the Laboratory of Educational Research at the University of Colorado. He has designed, conducted and overseen many summative and formative evaluations of youth programs for African American Leaders, family resource schools, after school programs for Latino and inner-city youth, the Denver Public schools arts infusion into curriculum, the Knight Foundation youth serving programs, State of Colorado Council on The Arts. With NRC staff Dr. Miller conceived the Youth Outcome Toolkit and Youth Outcome Network which led to a seminal publication, in American Journal of Evaluation, recommending "Insourcing" as an evaluation model for community-based organizations. His survey research and performance measurement research have taken him to India, Thailand and Afghanistan. At national conferences across the U.S., he trains public officials and non-profit staff on research and evaluation methods and discusses the findings of research studies. Dr. Miller has authored two books on survey research methods, several book chapters and tens of articles in peer reviewed and trade journals on research and evaluation issues. Tom is a member of the American Evaluation Association, the American society for Public Administration and the American Association of Public Opinion Research and a reviewer for American Journal of Evaluation.