harvard university phd urban planning

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African and African American Studies

American studies, anthropology, applied mathematics, applied physics, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, bioengineering, biological and biomedical sciences, biological sciences in public health.

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‘I haven’t really had a proper weekend in a long time’

Juan Reynoso’s interest in the intersection of health and design traces back to his parents, who were born in rural Mexico and immigrated to California.

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Breaking ground with new degree

Chris Sweeney

Harvard Chan School Communications

Juan Reynoso bridging the worlds of public health and urban planning

This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates.

Juan Reynoso is about to step into largely uncharted territory. When he graduates this spring, he’ll be only the second person to have completed a new joint Master in Public Health (M.P.H.)/Master in Urban Planning (M.U.P.) degree program . Launched in 2016 by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), the program allows students to pursue a transdisciplinary education in urban planning and public health and sharpen their understanding of key areas including policy, sustainability, and social determinants of health .

Over the course of the program, Reynoso has bounced between studios at GSD , where he’s wrestled with urban planning challenges, and classrooms at Harvard Chan School, where he’s learned about population health and has grown especially interested in how environmental exposures, such as air pollution or tainted drinking water, affect health.

“It’s so interesting because each graduate School at Harvard has its own culture, its own pedagogy, its own way of thinking,” Reynoso says. “This program has allowed me to break out of those silos. And that’s helped me to better make connections among a wide variety of disciplines so I can analyze how certain urban planning efforts have health co-benefits or how certain health interventions have environmental benefits.”

Pollution in the valley

Reynoso’s interest in the intersection of health and design traces back to his parents. They were born in rural Mexico and immigrated to California, living first outside of Los Angeles and later moving to the Central Valley — the inland stretch of California that’s one of the most important agricultural hubs in the world. “I was born in Tulare County, which is a pretty rural agricultural area that consistently has some of the worst air quality and water quality in the country,” he said.

As a young boy, Reynoso was oblivious to the air pollution that drifted into the valley from nearby cities and the myriad pesticides that doused the surrounding farmland and would get kicked up into the atmosphere when strong winds swept through. Looking back now, he can’t help but wonder whether the environment of Tulare County was harming him. “I was very sickly as a child,” he recalled. “I missed half of my kindergarten year because I was always ill with respiratory diseases. How is a child supposed to be successful when the environmental exposures surrounding them are making them sick?”

Reynoso’s family eventually picked up and moved to Escondido, a city in San Diego County. The difference in his health was “night and day,” he said. “Rather than miss half the school year, I’d miss like 10 days at most.”

Reynoso was an excellent student and by high school his schedule was stacked with advanced placement classes. Around the same time, a series of wildfires tore through Southern California and came unsettlingly close to Escondido. Smoke and haze lingered in the air and Reynoso started wondering what that meant for his and his community’s health. “I was taking a class in environmental science at the time, and all these things started clicking for me,” he said.

With these experiences in mind, Reynoso chose to major in human biology with a concentration in environmental health at Stanford University. After graduating, he joined The California Endowment, a statewide foundation focused on health. While there, he worked on its Building Healthy Communities initiative, exploring a wide range of issues that sat at the intersection of policy, urban planning, and health, including active transportation and community land use.

Bridging disciplines

When Reynoso began exploring graduate schools, the joint M.P.H./M.U.P. program hit all the right notes. It blended his interests and fit his ambitions to improve community health through cross-disciplinary strategies.

“Juan is an energetic problem solver. As one of the first students in the joint M.P.H./M.U.P. program, he has been active in helping to build a community of students. As a leader in the Healthy Places Student Group at the GSD, an area of growing student interest, Juan has been really active in organizing events and promoting dialogue,” said Ann Forsyth , Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Planning and director of the Master in Urban Planning Program at the GSD.

Joseph Allen , assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard Chan School, said it’s heartening to see students like Juan push the field of public health forward. One of the shortcomings in Allen’s own public health training, he said, was a lack of focus on building science , design, and urban planning. “Juan is working to bridge the gap between these disciplines,” Allen said. “He really is a pioneer.”

Reynoso isn’t sure what his next step will be after he graduates. But he knows that he wants to tackle some of the biggest health and environmental challenges in a way that prioritizes equity and justice. He thinks back often to his childhood in the Central Valley, and of the disparities that persist across his beloved home state. He hopes that his training at Harvard can help remedy some of these problems.

“California is the richest state in the richest country in the world, and there are millions of people who don’t have access to clean drinking water or who are constantly exposed to air pollution or who are harmed by the environment in which they live in myriad other ways,” he said. “We need to work collectively in order to solve the public health challenges of today.”

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Judith Grant Long

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• Harvard Graduate School of Design

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Judith Grant Long is an associate professor of urban planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where her research examines the intersection of infrastructure and urbanism. Long is an internationally recognized expert on planning for sports and tourism infrastructure. Her forthcoming book, Public-Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities (Routledge), examines the financial arrangements of more than 100 ballparks, stadiums, and arenas and shows how host cities pay far more to subsidize these facilities than is commonly understood.

At Radcliffe, Long will complete another book project, titled “Olympic Urbanism: From Rome to Rio,” which analyzes the claim that the Olympics Games are a catalyst for urban redevelopment on the basis of fieldwork in 15 host cities, including Rome (1960) and Rio de Janeiro (2016). The book compares host-city aspirations for consequent urban redevelopment, as revealed in bid packages and other planning documents, with the actual physical outcomes evident in the postgames use of sports venues, athletes’ villages, and ceremonial parks, along with the transportation, media, and security networks built to accommodate the games.

Long’s research has been funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the IBM Center for the Business of Government, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, among others. She has testified on infrastructure finance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and her research has been quoted in major periodicals worldwide. Long holds an MDesS from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a PhD in urban planning from Harvard University.

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Joint Program in Law and Urban Planning

Harvard law school and harvard university graduate school of design.

Harvard Law School (HLS) and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) offer a joint degree program in law and urban planning. The HLS/GSD joint degree program supports and encourages students seeking an interdisciplinary education in urban planning and law, and prepares them for leadership positions at the intersection of these fields. The joint program permits students to pursue a Juris Doctor (JD) degree at HLS and a Master in Urban Planning (MUP) degree at the GSD and to complete both degrees in four years, rather than the five years that would be required if the degrees were pursued independently. Students in the joint program must complete all of the basic requirements for both the MUP and JD degrees, as further described below.

A committee made up of  HLS Professor Molly Brady  and  GSD Professor Jerold Kayden  (“Faculty Committee”) oversees the joint degree program. The Faculty Committee is responsible for making decisions regarding the structure and requirements of the program and for working with the students enrolled in the program.

Prospective JD/MUP students must apply, and be separately admitted, to both HLS and the GSD, each of which will independently review and admit applicants. Questions relating to the admissions process at each school should be addressed directly to  JD Admissions at HLS  and to the  Admissions Office at the GSD .

Prospective JD/MUP students may apply to HLS and/or the GSD, concurrently in advance of admission to either school, or during the first year at either school. Students interested in applying to either school for matriculation the following September should note the HLS deadline is early February while the GSD deadline is in mid-January. All HLS applicants are required to submit a GRE or LSAT score, in accordance with application guidelines. All GSD applicants are required to submit a GRE score. Once admitted, students should follow the notification procedures at each school regarding acceptance of admission and plans to matriculate.

Joint Program Declaration of Intent

In addition, students admitted to both schools should email  Kristi Jobson , Assistant Dean for Admissions and Chief Admissions Officer at HLS, and  Sean Conlon , GSD Registrar, if they intend to enroll in the joint degree program.

The joint degree program is currently limited to six entering students each year. If more than six eligible students seek to start the program in any given year, then the Faculty Committee will rank order the list of students, permitting enrollment of the top six.

Students in the joint degree program have four academic years to complete both degrees and are expected to spend five semesters and two winter terms in residence at HLS and three terms in residence at the GSD, for a total of eight fall or spring semesters/terms and two HLS winter terms.

In the first two years of the joint degree program, students are required to enroll for one full year of study at HLS and for one full year of study at the GSD; either can come first. In the third and fourth years of the program, joint degree students will enroll in, and take courses at, both schools. Students must take the majority (at least 12 units of the required 40) of their coursework at the GSD during one of those terms. See below for more information about the coursework at each school.

Students in the joint degree program will have a primary faculty advisor at both HLS and the GSD. Faculty advisors will supervise a student’s academic work and assist in determining the most appropriate sequencing for each student’s course of study, keeping in mind the requirements for both degrees.

Course and Credit Requirements

Harvard law school.

The first year at the Law School consists of the following coursework:

• Civil Procedure, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Legislation and Regulation, Property, Torts
• January Experiential Term
• First-year Legal Research and Writing
• Spring upper-level elective at HLS of a minimum of two and a maximum of four classroom credits

The Graduate School of Design

The first year at the GSD consists of 40 units of coursework. Note that a typical lecture course is 4 units.

In the first term, students take the following courses: Core Urban Planning Studio I (8 units); Methods of Urban Planning (4 units); Histories and Theories of Urban Interventions (4 units); and a course satisfying the Methods Requirements or the Area of Concentration Requirement, or an elective (total of 4 units).

In the second term, students take the following courses: Core Urban Planning Studio II (8 units); Public and Private Development (4 units); and courses satisfying the Methods Requirements, the Area of Concentration Requirement, and/or elective(s) (total of 8 units).

From time to time, one of the above-listed courses may be offered in an alternate term due to course scheduling changes. Also, MUP degree program requirements may change occasionally, in which case the student will be expected to know about and meet the requirements of the program applicable for the first full year during which the student attends the GSD.

Joint degree students must earn no fewer than 52 additional credits including 36 Law School classroom credits of which no fewer than 18 must be earned in the first year of combined upper-level-study. Classroom credits include those connected to courses, seminars and reading groups, but not writing or clinical credits. Classroom credits include the Professional Responsibility Requirement minimum of two credits and credits from the required winter terms (provided that the courses chosen offer classroom credits). In addition, GSD credits equivalent to 12 HLS credits may count toward the total 52 HLS upper-level credit requirement, but do not count as classroom credits. The remaining six required HLS credits may be earned in classroom, writing, or clinical courses.

Students must be enrolled in a minimum of 10 total credits each semester at the Law School or the GSD, or other authorized courses taken as part of the MUP degree, with no fewer than eight of these being Law School classroom credits toward the requirement of 36 classroom credits, with the exception of the upper-level semester during which students take the majority of their courses at the GSD. During this GSD-immersion semester, students must be enrolled in no fewer than four Law School classroom credits. The winter term requirement may be completed through classroom or clinical credits or (for one of the winter terms only) in the HLS Winter Term Writing Program. Students should complete a minimum of 21 total Law School credits each year each year in order to ensure a balanced program of study.

Joint degree students must complete the HLS J.D. Written Work Requirement. Further information on the J.D. Written Work Requirement and the Winter Term Writing Program is available from the  Law School Registrar’s Office .

Joint degree students also must complete the International  and Comparative Course Requirement, Experiential Learning Requirement, Professional Responsibility Requirement, and Pro Bono Requirement. For more information on the J.D. credit and graduation requirements, see the Handbook of Academic Policies .

Students in the joint degree program must earn a total of 40 GSD units during the third and fourth years in the program. In addition to taking at least one option studio OR 8 units of project based courses, or a final thesis including the thesis preparation class. Students must fulfill all MUP program requirements left uncompleted after the student’s full year in the program, including methods requirements and area of concentration requirements. Students should consult the MUP degree program requirements memorandum for further information.

The GSD considers one semester of coursework at HLS to be the equivalent of 20 GSD units towards satisfaction of the final required units of MUP degree credit. The GSD does not require that joint degree program students get pre-approval of the HLS courses they wish to use for GSD credit.

During the semester in which students must take a majority of their courses at the GSD, students must take at least sixty percent of the traditional MUP term course load, or 12 units.

Joint degree students are permitted to satisfy HLS and GSD requirements by counting a limited number of course credits toward both degrees. Up to the equivalent of 12 HLS credits may be earned through GSD courses and counted toward the required 16 HLS credits that may be taken in non-HLS classroom courses for degree credit. In addition, the GSD considers one semester of coursework at HLS to be the equivalent of 20 GSD units towards satisfaction of the final required units of MUP degree credit.

Tuition and Financial Aid

Enrollment in the joint degree program will result in significant tuition savings compared with the cost of pursuing the two degrees separately. Tuition is paid as follows: during the first two years, students will pay full tuition to the school in which they are enrolled. During the third and fourth years, students will pay 75% of HLS tuition and 25% of GSD tuition in each of the four semesters.

Financial Aid

Joint degree program students should apply for financial aid through the Law School’s  Student Financial Services  for the first year in the Law School and through the  GSD Financial Aid Office  for the first year there. For each of the four upper-level semesters during which they are in residence at both schools, students should apply to the Law School for financial aid.

Academics and Administration

Course overlaps.

Students will not be permitted to enroll in GSD and HLS courses with time overlaps and must allow fifteen minutes of travel time between courses.

Exame Schedules

Students will be expected to complete all HLS and GSD exams and reviews at the times they are scheduled; exceptions are at the sole discretion of each school, in accordance with their respective policies.

Grade Calculations

Grades earned in GSD courses will not be included in HLS GPA calculations or in the consideration of grade-based HLS prizes. In the same manner, grades earned in any HLS courses will not be used in the consideration of grade-based GSD prizes.

Registration

For each upper-level semester/term, students will be required to submit their course enrollment information and their completed course information to both the HLS and the GSD Registrars.

Mailboxes and Email

Students will be assigned mailboxes and remain on student e-mail lists at both schools for all four years of the joint degree program.

Withdrawal from Joint Degree Program

Once enrolled in the joint degree program, a student intending to leave it must petition the HLS Administrative Board and the GSD Master in Urban Planning Program Director for permission to leave the program and complete only one of the two degrees. Continuing HLS students must then complete all of the regular JD requirements in order to earn the JD degree. Continuing GSD students must complete all of any remaining MUP degree requirements in order to earn the MUP degree.

JD Admissions

617-495-3179 |  [email protected]

Student Financial Services

617-495-4606 | [email protected]

Low Income Protection Plan

[email protected]

Program Information

April Pettit , Associate Director of Academic Affairs | 617-495-7192

Graduate School of Design

Geri Nederhoff  and  Gail Gustafson , Admissions Directors | 617-496-1238

Sean Conlon , Registrar | 617-496-5154

Financial Aid Office

617-495-5455 |  [email protected]

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Harvard University Planning and Design

Stewards of one of the world’s most iconic campus settings.

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HUPAD advances Harvard’s mission of teaching and research in the service of humanity by sustaining and enhancing its built environment. HUPAD supports stewardship of one of the world’s most iconic academic settings and strives for excellence in campus planning and design.

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Urban planning and design, urban planning and design thesis prize.

Upon recommendation of the faculty in the Department of Urban Planning and Design, a prize is given to the graduating student in the programs leading to the degrees MAUD, MLAUD, or MUP who has prepared the best independent thesis during that academic year.

• Read more about Urban Planning and Design Thesis Prize

Award for Outstanding Leadership in Urban Planning and Urban Design

This award honors graduating students in the urban planning and urban design programs who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their respective programs during their time at the Graduate School of Design.

• Read more about Award for Outstanding Leadership in Urban Planning and Urban Design

Druker Traveling Fellowship

Established in 1986 by Ronald M. Druker, Loeb Fellow '76, and by the Trustees of the Bertram A. Druker Charitable Foundation, this fellowship is open to all students at the GSD who demonstrate excellence in the design of urban environments. The fellowship offers students the opportunity to travel in the United States or abroad to pursue study that advances understanding of urban design.

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Urban Planning and Design

As a post-professional studio-based program, the Master of Architecture in Urban Design (M.A.U.D.) combines intense design instruction, extensive applied research, and knowledge of urban history and theory. Taking advantage of the remarkable international makeup of the faculty and student body, the M.A.U.D. program establishes a common intellectual ground among architects who have a strong interest in engaging the practice and theory of contemporary urbanism.

Jointly administered by the Department of Urban Planning and Design and the Department of Landscape Architecture, the program leading to the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design (M.L.A.U.D.) is intended for individuals who have completed a five-year undergraduate professional program in landscape architecture or its equivalent. Students enrolled in the GSD’s professional programs in Landscape Architecture are also encouraged to apply for a concurrent Urban Design degree, for which an individual curriculum may be arranged.

Accredited by the Planning Accreditation Board and open to students with an undergraduate degree, the two-year professional Master in Urban Planning (M.U.P.) degree program engages with critical issues facing cities and regions in coming decades. Drawing on the strengths of the department, school, and university, GSD planning students learn how to understand, analyze, and influence the variety of forces—social, economic, cultural, legal, political, ecological, and aesthetic, among others—shaping the built environment.

Related Programs

Architecture, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning.

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Urban Planning and Design

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• Search for books, many journal articles formerly available only in databases, journals, images, maps, manuscript and archival materials, videos, music and open access
• Looking for articles in design journals? See article search options, below.
• International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Harvard Login) Provides knowledge across the wide range of behavioral and social sciences fields. Entries discuss history, current trends and future directions.Includes sections on planning and urban studies issues.
• Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (Harvard Login)
• Planning and Urban Design Standards, 2006.

Most useful databases:

• Avery Index of Architectural Periodicals
• Urban Studies Abstracts
• Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) : a multidisciplinary database that includes citations and abstracts from over 4,700 scholarly publications (journals, magazines and newspapers). Full text is available for more than 3,600 of the publications and is searchable.
• America: History and Life
• Web of Science Citation Index , including Journal Citations Reports , with ranking of urban studies titles by impact factor.
• Journal of Planning Literature
• Factiva : Provides worldwide full text coverage of local and regional newspapers, including The Boston Globe, trade publications, business newswires, press release wires, media transcripts, news photos, business-rich Web sites, and many other sources.
• PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service)
• Sociological Abstracts
• CQ Researcher : reports on a current social issues, providing background information, important points to consider, charts and graphs, and a source list for further reading. Relevant reports on housing, development and transportation.
• Lexis Nexis Academic : for indexing and full text of legal, business and news sources.
• ISI Emerging Markets :  provides comprehensive country and company information for emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East-North Africa,including: country profiles; macroeconomic statistics, forecasts, and analysis; reports on financial markets, companies and industries; exchange rates; analyst reports; and business news.
• National Transportation Library
• TRID is an integrated database that combines the records from TRB’s Transportation Research Information Services Database and the OECD’s Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation, providing access to more that one millon records of transportation research worldwide.
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Harvard University PhD in Urban & Regional Planning, General

Urban & Regional Planning, General is a concentration offered under the urban and regional planning major at Harvard University. Here, you’ll find out more about the major doctor’s degree program in urban design, including such details as the number of graduates, diversity of students, and more.

If there’s something special you’re looking for, you can use one of the links below to find it:

• Graduate Cost
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• Student Diversity

How Much Does a Doctorate in Urban Design from Harvard Cost?

Harvard graduate tuition and fees.

In 2019-2020, the average part-time graduate tuition at Harvard was $1,545 per credit hour for both in-state and out-of-state students. The following table shows the average full-time tuition and fees for graduate student.

Does Harvard Offer an Online PhD in Urban Design?

Harvard does not offer an online option for its urban design doctor’s degree program at this time. To see if the school offers distance learning options in other areas, visit the Harvard Online Learning page.

Harvard Doctorate Student Diversity for Urban Design

Male-to-female ratio.

Of the students who received their doctor’s degree in urban design in 2019-2020, none of them were women.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

None of the urban design doctor’s degree recipients at Harvard in 2019-2020 were awarded to racial-ethnic minorities*.

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online

More about our data sources and methodologies .

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HARVARD URBAN REVIEW

Annual Student Journal, founded by Master of Urban Planning students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design

The Urban Review is a digital journal founded in 2018 by Master in Urban Planning students at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. We collect and publish the work of planning, design, and architecture students on topics relevant to urban planning in a range of formats with an emphasis on critical engagement.

As students, we believe that we share a collective responsibility to engage in meaningful discussion about the fraught history of the urban planning profession and its most pressing issues today, including structural racism, income and wealth inequality, environmental justice, and the threat of climate change, among many others. We have found that these issues, many of which intersect, are not adequately addressed in our curriculum. In response, we offer an alternative space for progressive discourse on the history and future of our profession.

First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio

First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio introduces students to the fundamental knowledge and technical skills used by urban planners to investigate, analyze, create, and implement plans and projects.

In this studio Boston provides the location for developing skills and strategies to address and understand the local in its wider context. Planners need to engage the particularities of districts, neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions as well as their wider contexts.

The course focuses on four key challenges of contemporary urban planning—equity, climate, health, and accessibility. While the US legacy of white supremacy raises questions of great urgency, the question of how planning can help make places more just and equitable is an enduring concern in planning. Anthropogenic climate change is challenging planners to mitigate its effects and adapt to changes already underway, while also addressing other environmental challenges. The COVID pandemic has highlighted the continuing challenge of infectious diseases even as non-communicable diseases and injuries remain major causes of death amenable to prevention through changes to the built environment. Finally, towns and cities exist to help people gain access to nearby resources such as jobs, services, and cultural opportunities. Changes in technologies have altered whether one needs to be mobile to have accessibility; whether these changes will further equity is an open question. There are no easy answers; the critical and creative skills of the urban planner are being called upon now more than ever to advance the notion of a just society.

Planners address messy situations where the problems are disputed, and the solutions contested. They figure out the important questions to answer, identify relevant information, listen to multiple voices, propose strategies, communicate ideas, and revise proposals. In this studio students gain experience engaging with complex and unclear situations in ways that can lead toward plausible and ethical approaches to addressing them. The studio teaching approach is one of creating a setting for producing learning rather than delivering instruction about exactly what you should do. Students also experiment with how to effectively communicate with others at different stages of a planning process.

JUST-R metrics for considering energy justice in early-stage energy research

• Dutta, Nikita S.
• Gill, Elizabeth
• Arkhurst, Bettina K.
• Hallisey, Mary
• Fu, Katherine
• Anderson, Kate

Nikita S. Dutta is a director's postdoctoral fellow in the Materials Science Center of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). She received her PhD in materials science from Princeton University and BS in physics from Yale University. Her research focuses on developing and applying novel electron microscopy methods to study structural evolution and degradation of materials in energy technologies. Elizabeth (Liz) Gill is a policy and markets research analyst in NREL's National Wind Technology Center. She received her BA in political science from Willamette University and MS in environmental policy and governance from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on wind energy social acceptance and policy, energy equity, and community energy planning. Bettina K. Arkhurst is a PhD candidate in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech and an energy equity intern in NREL's Accelerated Deployment and Decision Support Center. She holds a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from MIT and Georgia Tech, respectively. Her research seeks to understand how concepts of justice can be applied to energy technology design to enable better consideration of marginalized and vulnerable populations. Mary Hallisey has worked in clean energy research for over 25 years as an independent consultant, research faculty member at Georgia Tech, and program manager at NREL. Her research and engagement experience includes investigating energy policy applications and stakeholder interactions as they apply to technology development and deployment. Her body of work includes feasibility studies for renewable energy development, incorporation of spatial planning applications, and community engagement in both urban and rural settings. Katherine Fu is the Jay and Cynthia Ihlenfeld Associate Professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her PhD and MS in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and her BS in mechanical engineering from Brown University. Her work focuses on studying the engineering design process through cognitive studies and extending those findings to methods/tools to facilitate more effective and inspired design. Kate Anderson is chief of staff for energy systems integration at NREL. She supports operations and strategic planning focused on power systems, energy security and resilience, systems analysis, and decision science and coordinates energy justice activities across NREL. She holds a BS in aerospace engineering from MIT and a PhD in advanced energy systems from Colorado School of Mines.