Professor Marc Schlossberg has been awarded a rare second Fulbright Scholarship, this time to work with faculty at Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, where he will collaborate with colleagues in the institute’s Department of Architecture and Town Planning.

A professor in the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the UO, Schlossberg will use his Fulbright year to focus on sustainability and community quality of life, specifically how city design decisions influence active and sustainable modes of transportation such as walking and biking.

“Israel presents a very interesting laboratory within which to explore these issues,“ he says.

Along with teaching in PPPM, Schlossberg is co-director of the UO’s Sustainable Cities Initiative. He was a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom in 2009-10.

Factors driving his research in Israel include an emphasis on ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, a need to reduce obesity rates among children and adults, concern about sprawl and its impacts on land and energy consumption, changing preferences among active baby boomers and young millennials, and a recognition that walking and biking are impeded by poor design.

“My primary research focus comes from a rather simple question: ‘What makes a walkable or bikeable environment?’ Answering the question with a tangible set of variables, efficient ways of collecting data based on those variables, effective means of analyzing the data once it is collected and communicating insights for both scholars and professionals is not so simple.”

The full story can be found on the School of Architecture & Allied Arts website.

—By A&AA Communications