Planning for Healthy and Happy Communities ASU

What do neighborhoods with happy residents look like? How can bicyclists act as ‘citizen scientists’ to help cities gather valuable data? This course explores two innovative research initiatives.

What you'll learn:

While a great deal of research has been done on characteristics of communities that help people be healthy, much less is known about what aspects of a community help its residents be happy. This course introduces new research that investigates this question. You’ll also learn about ‘crowdsourcing’ using GPS-enabled cell phones – how a community’s residents can use technology to create data valuable to improving the community.

Note: This course is not hosted on the Starbucks Global Academy platform. After enrolling, the course content will direct you on how to complete registration for this content.

Meet Your Instructors

Deirdre Pfeiffer

Associate Professor, ASU School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning

Dr. Pfeiffer earned her doctorate from the University of California Los Angles, and is currently an Associate Professor at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on housing strategies in the U.S. relevant to an aging and diversifying society, the outcomes of the foreclosure crisis, and the relationship between suburban growth and racial equity. Professor Pfeiffer has been a contributor to the Reinvent Phoenix collaboration, which aims to re-envision five neighborhoods around the light rail based on sustainability principles. She teaches courses on public participation in planning, housing planning and policy, and qualitative research methods.

Trisalyn Nelson

Director and Foundation Professor, ASU School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning

Dr. Nelson is Director and Foundation Professor at Arizona State University. Prior to joining ASU in 2016, Dr. Nelson was a professor at the University of Victoria in Geography from 2005 to 2016. There she founded and directed the Spatial Pattern Analysis and Research (SPAR) Lab, was Director of the Geomatics Program, and held the Lansdowne Research Chair in Spatial Sciences. Professor Nelson's research develops and uses spatial and spatial-temporal analyses to address applied questions in a wide range of fields from ecology to health. Currently, her research focuses on two areas: wildlife movement and active transportation.