EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Mark Blades teaches Developmental Psychology at the University of Sheffield, U.K. His interests include research into the most effective ways to interview young children about their life and experiences, the influence of marketing and advertising on children's lives, as well as research into many aspects of children's environmental knowledge. In particular, he has carried out studies of children's wayfinding skills, their understanding of maps and aerial photographs, and other aspects of young children's spatial and geographical knowledge. He has also investigated the wayfinding skills of children with visual impairments and children with Williams syndrome.

Jo Boyden trained as a social anthropologist. Her work involved research, training, policy development and monitoring, and evaluation on issues such as child labor, children separated from family, and children affected by war. Her research interests include children’s development, roles, resilience and coping in contexts of adversity. Dr. Boyden worked for 20 years as a social development consultant to a wide range of governmental and non-governmental aid agencies. She is currently a research officer at the University of Oxford, where she is researching the responses of children and adolescents to armed conflict and forced migration.

Joy Carlson, MPH, has worked in the public health arena for three decades. For 20 years, her area of concentration has been in environmental and occupational health. Ms. Carlson co-founded the Children’s Environmental Health Network, USA, and served as its Executive Director for 10 years. She and the Network were some of the chief architects of the children’s environmental health movement that has resulted in changes in the policy, research, and health practice fields nationally. Consulting with organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Commission on Environmental Cooperation and the European Environment Agency, she has also helped expand the children’s environmental health movement internationally. Currently, she is principal of J. Carlson Consulting, working with national and international organizations on environmental health and other issues.

Yolanda Corona holds degrees in educational psychology and anthropology. She is a professor and researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico where she directs a national education project on children rights and opportunities. She is also a founding member of the Programa Infancia. This program integrates research, teaching and social service, and supports the enrichment of academic knowledge by information generated by people in NGOs working directly with children in vulnerable situations. Professor Corona's current research focuses on rural children, the young people's participation in resistance movements, and the ways in which indigenous children participate in their own communities. She has edited several books and journals issues on children in vulnerable situations, participation, and politics.

Eliana Riggio Chaudhuri studied in Italy and the United States, specializing in development studies and city and regional planning. Dr. Riggio Chaudhuri has served UNICEF for 15 years, first in the field coordinating several projects in urban areas, and recently as the coordinator for the International Child Friendly Cities Secretariat at the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence. The CFC Secretariat focuses on the implementation of children’s rights at the sub-national, municipal level. It also carries out documentation and research on innovations in favor of children, which are now being tested by municipal governments in all regions of the world.

Nilda Cosco holds a degree in psychopedagogy (theory and practice of learning processes) from Salvador University, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her research is focused on the assessment of outdoor environments and the impact of nature on child development. In January 2000, Ms. Cosco founded the Natural Learning Initiative (NLI), College of Design, North Carolina State University with Robin Moore. She consults on design and programming of spaces for play, leisure, and nonformal/formal education in public parks, school grounds, and institutions such as child development centers, museums, zoos, botanical gardens, hospitals, and toy libraries. She designs and delivers training courses on play and learning for children with and without disabilities and children at risk.

Dorothy Dunn is director of programs at AIGA, the professional association for design where she is responsible for its biennial Design Conference, the International Design Conference at Aspen (IDCA) and conferences and programs developed with AIGA chapters and task forces as well as other partner organizations. She also works with AIGA members to strategize and develop design education programs and products to offer design as a tool for enhanced teaching and learning across the K-12 curriculum and throughout the community. Previously, Ms. Dunn was the director of education at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution where she developed exhibition activity guides and a variety of conferences and launched Design Directions, a career awareness program for high school students; A City of Neighborhoods: Bridging School and Community, a civic participation and advocacy program for students, educators, and community leaders; and Summer Design Institute, a national program to explore the potential for design to enhance teaching and learning in schools. In 2004, she was the inaugural recipient of the Smithsonian Education Achievement Award.

Gary W. Evans is an environmental and developmental psychologist in the departments of Design and Environmental Analysis and Human Development, at Cornell University. His primary research interests include the impacts of the physical environment on children, the environment of poverty, environmental stress, and children's environments.

Mark Francis, FASLA, is a professor of landscape architecture and the director of the Center for Design Research at the University of California at Davis. His work is concerned with the theory and design of urban and community landscapes. Trained in landscape architecture and urban design at Harvard and Berkeley, he is also a practicing landscape architect. He has received numerous awards for his research and design projects and is also an associate editor of the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research.

Hartmut Günther studied in Germany and the United States, where he completed a Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of California at Davis. He has taught at universities in Brazil since 1975. Using the city of Brasilia as a natural laboratory, he started EPRG, one of the first environmental psychology research groups in Brazil, where studies in recent years have concentrated on the quality of urban life among children, youth and the elderly, as well as the environmental psychology of traffic conditions

Liisa Horelli is an Academy research fellow at the Helsinki University of Technology, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies in Finland. Her action research has concentrated on the development of human-friendly environments with children and young people. In her work, Dr. Horelli also examines gender perspectives of diversity and psychosocial inclusion.

Selim Iltus is the co-director of the Children’s Environments Research Group at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is an environmental psychologist with a background in architecture. He works to promote the participation of children and youth in research, planning and design, and conducts research into the design and planning of children’s spaces, including playgrounds, schools, museums and juvenile justice facilities.

Lalitha Iyer is an independent development advisor, living in India, where she works as a consultant to the government of India’s Ministry of Health, Department of Family Welfare. She worked for seven years with PLAN International on cross-regional projects covering Asia, Africa and Central America and on issues related to human habitat, children’s rights, and participation by adolescent and youth in community development processes. She also played a key role in the city Summit (Habitat II) and in preparatory work for the UN General Assembly Special Session in the Americas.

Peter H. Kahn, Jr. is a research associate professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Washington. He is author of the book, The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture (1999, MIT Press). He recently co-edited the book (with Steve Kellert), Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations (2002, MIT Press). Dr. Kahn’s current research, funded by the National Science Foundation, examines what happens when technology mediates the human experience of nature. Project areas include the human-robotic relationship (e.g., children’s relationships with robotic pets), plasma displays of real-time local nature (e.g., in inside offices), and a computer simulation model (“UrbanSim”) for integrated land use and transportation planning of urban development.

Lia Karsten (Dr. Ir.) is an associate professor of urban geography in the
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies. Her research interests include three interrelated themes: geographies of children and youth, family housing, and the use of urban public space. She recently completed, with Carolien Bouw, an extensive historical study of the changing position children in cities. She is currently conducting research on family life in new residential environments. Lia Karsten has worked on research and policy projects for national and local governments and has published widely in a broad range of national and international journals. She has been co-organiser of several conferences (most recently: Childstreet2005) and is a member of the international advisory board of Children's Geographies.

Isami Kinoshita is a leader in the action research movement in Tokyo, studying children's environments and participatory community design. He and his colleagues were the first in Japan to develop three-generation maps by interviewing three generations of people who grew up in one community, a method now used all over the country. Mr. Kinoshita holds an architecture degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology. An associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, Chiba University, he is active in many projects in different areas, including involvement in the neighborhoods in which he lives and the creation of opportunities for citizen participation regarding children's activities.

Ray Lorenzo , a native of New York, lives and works in Perugia, Italy. His areas of research, action, and study are children and the city, participatory planning and design, sustainable development, and urban features. He consults with municipal administrators, UNICEF, WWF and other organizations. Dr. Lorenzo was trained in city planning at Harvard and has expertise in the areas of child-friendly participatory planning and design, children’s rights, and the management of complex participatory strategies for sustainable and human-friendly urban features.

Karen Malone is an associate professor at RMIT University Australia. Her research interests are in youth, children and postmodernism, popular culture, media and consumerism, new learning in new times, young people’s participation in social and environmental planning, action/participatory research, narrative and storytelling, science and environmental education.

Robin Moore was a student of Kevin Lynch in urban planning at MIT and also holds an architecture degree from London University. He is professor of landscape architecture and director of the Natural Learning Initiative, North Carolina State University, and a principal in the firm of Moore Iacofano Goltsman. Dr. Moore is an international authority on the design of children’s play and learning environments, user needs, and participatory design programming of urban environments. He is a member of the Growing Up in Cities UNESCO-sponsored, international participatory action research team.

Dipak Naker is a cofounder and co-director of Raising Voices, a non-profit
organization based in Uganda, working to prevent violence against women and children. He has worked for more than ten years in East Africa to promote children's rights. He was formerly one of the directors at the kuleana Center for Child Rights in Tanzania. He also co-founded the Jijenge! Center for Sexual Health in Tanzania and served as its project leader for the first 18 months. He has been a consultant with several international agencies and co-authored and edited various publications.

Gabriella Olofsson has worked for 15 years on children's rights, child sensitive approaches and children's participation, including four years as regional program coordinator for Save the Children Sweden in Southeast Asia, with a rights-based program that included the development of a child-friendly district in Ho Chi Minh City, child-friendly learning environments, working children's participation in research and programming, and juvenile justice. She is currently working for Save the Children Sweden in Stockholm as advisor on children's environments, focusing on Save the Children's tsunami response programs in Asia. She holds a master's degree in political science and international development studies.

Barry Percy-Smith is senior research fellow at SOLAR – Social and Organisational Learning as Action Research – at The University of the West of England. His doctoral study was undertaken in conjunction with the Growing Up In Cities program supported by the UNESCO–MOST program, and involved young people in evaluating and improving their local environments. He works largely with children, practitioners and policymakers, using “whole system” participatory and action-research approaches which support social action and change in organizations, communities, partnerships and government programs. Recent work has focused on the role of young people in local governance processes such as planning, delivery and evaluation of local interventions in the fields of education, homelessness, health, children’s services, youth offending and neighborhood improvement. Main interests include: educational reform, active citizenship, inclusion, social relationships, parenting and human development, community development and local democracy.

Parviz Piran is a faculty member of in the Department of Social Research,
Allameh Tabatabaee University, Tehran, Iran, and a Scientific Board member of the Swiss Academy for Development. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, in 1979. His publications include several books and numerous articles on poverty, citizen participation, youth, and public space. His research has focused on such designing and implementing the School Mayors of Iran initiative, Neighborhood Councils in Iran, and Healthy Neighborhoods. He received an award from UNDP for his contributions to community development and poverty alleviation.

Mitchel Resnick is an associate professor at the MIT Media Laboratory. His research explores how new technologies can help people learn new things in new ways. Resnick's research group developed the ideas underlying the LEGO Mindstorms robotics construction kit, and he has led the development of several projects designed to help people learn about complex systems and emergent phenomena. He co-founded the Computer Clubhouse project, a network of after-school learning centers for youth from under-served communities. Dr. Resnick is co-director of the Media Lab's Digital Nations initiative, which address major social challenges (such as education, health care, and community development) through the creative design and use of new technologies. He worked for five years as a science/technology journalist for Business Week magazine, and he has consulted widely on the uses of computers in education. He is author of the book Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams (1994), co-author of Adventures in Modeling (2001), and co-editor of Construction ism in Practice (1996).

Sharon Egretta Sutton is a professor of architecture and director of the Center for Environment, Education, and Design Studies (CEEDS) at the University of Washington. She has been an architecture educator since 1975, having held positions at Pratt Institute, Columbia University, The University of Cincinnati, and the University of Michigan, where she became the first African-American woman in the United States to be promoted to full professor in an accredited professional degree program in architecture. Her education includes degrees in music, architecture, philosophy, and psychology. CEEDS is an interdisciplinary group of faculty dedicated to improving learning and community well-being through design through partnerships with non-profit and for-profit groups.

Joachim Theis has worked for twenty years in international development in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He has been involved in Participatory Poverty Assessments and Poverty Reduction Strategies, research on child labour, and in promoting rights-based approaches and children's participation in Asia and the Pacific. He has written about rights-based approaches, participatory research methods, monitoring and evaluation methodologies, and child and youth participation. He currently works in UNICEF's Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific on youth programming. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology and an MA in Development Studies, Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies.