Louise Chawla

Louise Chawla is a Professor in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado, where she is a member of the Executive Committee of the Children Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design and co-editor of the Children Youth and Environments Journal.

Louise Chawla's interest in children's informal learning in their communities led her to a masters in Education and Child Development from Bryn Mawr College, followed by a doctorate in Environmental Psychology from the City University of New York. She has written widely on children and nature, children in cities, and the development of environmental activism. Her publications include the books In the First Country of Places: Nature, Poetry and Childhood Memory and the co-authored collection Growing Up in an Urbanising World. When she served as a Fulbright Scholar at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, she revived the Growing Up in Cities project of UNESCO, which continues to involve urban children in cities around the world in evaluating and improving their local communities. The project won the 2002 Place Research Award from the Environmental Design Research Association. She is currently involved in promoting design for children’s nature play in residential neighborhoods.