Feb 26th 2016

Cloud Talk: Kristina Hill

Kristina Hill will deliver an SOM Cloud Talk on "Cities Adapting to Flooding" on Fri., Feb. 26, 2 p.m. in S. R. Crown Hall, Lower Center Core.

Kristina Hill is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Hill's work addresses urban ecological dynamics in relationship to physical design and social justice issues. Her primary area of work is in adapting urban water systems to the new challenges associated with climate change. Professor Hill helped to develop ideas for new water-system approaches to support salmon health in the Pacific Northwest. Her involvement as a citizen in urban-system advocacy led her to serve as the head of a transit agency in Seattle, after helping to found that agency as a volunteer board member. Professor Hill's work in urban design is currently focused on New Orleans, where she is a member of the Dutch-American engineering and design team that is developing that city’s new water management strategy. She is also currently collaborating with colleagues in The Netherlands to understand coastal sand transport and the potential for lower-cost, dynamic designs to help secure coastal communities as sea levels rise.

Professor Hill lectures internationally on urban design and ecology, and served as chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Virginia from 2007-2010. Her bookEcology and Design: Frameworks for Learning was published by Island Press in 2002, and her current book project is focused on adapting urban waterfronts to climate change. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, and was a member of the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Virginia before coming to California. She was honored as a Fellow of the Urban Design Institute in New York, and has conducted research in Stockholm, Sweden, as a Fulbright Scholar.