Lucie Laurian, an international expert in environmental justice and planning theory, has been appointed chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the School of Architecture and Planning, effective Aug. 23.

Laurian is a prolific scholar widely acclaimed for her research on environmental planning and public participation in environmental decisions related to toxic site cleanups in the U.S. and France.

She was professor and director of the School of Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Iowa, where she served on the faculty for nearly 20 years. Laurian holds a PhD in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and earned her master’s in sociology and demography in Paris, France.

Her research on urban planning spans the evaluation, implementation and outcomes of sustainability plans, the organizational determinants of implementation, and the linkages between elected officials’ campaigns and their support for environmental planning strategies.

More recently, she has conducted research on urban forestry, the role of trust in planning, and the treatment of time in planning research and practice. Her scholarship has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the New Zealand Foundation for Science, Research and Technology.

• PhD, City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  
• MA, Demography, Institut de Démographie Universitaire de Paris, University Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris
• MA, Sociology, University René Descartes, Paris V
  
• BA, Sociology, University René Descartes, Paris V
  

• ACSP/Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Curriculum Innovation Award for the course Eight Generational Planning: Envisioning Cities for Year 2228, joint with S. Spak and S. Spears
• Faculty Service Award from the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities, UI Provost’s Office of Outreach and Engagement
• Fulbright Fellowship, awarded by the Franco-American Commission for PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill