![Louise Chawla](/envd/sites/default/files/styles/small/public/people/chawlapines.jpg?itok=IlWSzjKB)
Louise Chawla is Professor Emerita in the Environmental Design Program at the University of Colorado Boulder, a Fellow in the university’s Community Engagement, Design and Research Center, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Children and Nature Network. Given degrees in environmental psychology and child development, her career has focused on creating optimal environments for, and with, children and teens. She has written widely on children and nature, children in cities, and the development of active care for the environment. As a founding member of the Growing Up Boulder program, she works with an alliance of organizations that include the university, the City of Boulder, and Boulder Valley School District to provide opportunities for place-based learning and to give children and youth a voice in city planning processes, including naturalizing school grounds, city greening, and park design. Program methods and initiatives are featured in her most recent book, co-authored with Victoria Derr and Mara Mintzer: Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices to Plan Sustainable Communities (New Village Press, 2018), which won the 2019 Achievement Award from the Environmental Design Research Association