A Square Peg in a Round Hole: Transcending Disciplines to Develop and Finance Green Stormwater Infrastructure
Perspectives in Global Development: Spring 2024 Seminar Series
Abstract
In this talk dr palmer will discuss the challenges and opportunities to breaking down disciplinary and professional silos to do work that matters. Three threads are at the heart of this talk: transdisciplinarity, career trajectories, and green infrastructure.
About the speaker
joni m palmer, Ph.D. , APA, ASLA
For over thirty years, joni’s professional life has been a blend of practice and academia. She has worked for municipal, state, and federal government, and private design and planning firms in Albuquerque, Denver/Boulder, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco. Her practice realms include: research consultation, community outreach and engagement strategist, community and environmental planning, and arts and cultural planning. And, she has taught at universities across the country, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Colorado-Boulder, and the University of New Mexico.
She joined the Southwest Environmental Finance Center as a Project Director in January 2020. Her work at the SWEFC draws on her experience in qualitative methods and research design, landscape architecture, and community and regional planning. Her research interests focus on the intersection of human-environment relations and landscape design and community planning. She is interested in social, cultural, and financial aspects of water, especially in small to mid-sized communities, and rural and disadvantaged communities. joni is currently exploring how arts and culture can be incorporated into water workforce development projects, and she is developing an approach to bringing workforce development, integrated asset management, and environmental justice into green infrastructure conversations. Dr. palmer brings the experience of developing creative research approaches and programs that are specific to community needs to all the project teams she is a part of. Some of the projects she has been involved in at the SWEFC: UNM Sustainable Water Resources Grand Challenge, New Mexico Water Utility Study, Spring Point Partners Funding Resources, Spring Point Partners Gray to Green Infrastructure, water workforce development (Future Water Leaders program—developing the K-12 pipeline—with Wichita State EFC, Water Leadership Program—with Syracuse University EFC).
Dr. palmer received a Bachelor of Science in City & Regional Planning and Design & Environmental Analysis from Cornell University, a Master of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Ph.D. in Human Geography from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She is a member of the American Association of Geographers (specialty group member: cultural geography, landscape studies, water resources), American Planning Association (member of the Water Planning Network, president of the NM state chapter), and the American Society of Landscape Architects.
Perspectives in Global Development
The Perspectives in Global Development seminars are held Wednesdays from 12:20-1:20 p.m. eastern time during the semester. The series is presented in a hybrid format. All seminars are shown in 175 Warren Hall. Students, faculty and the general public are welcome to attend. The series is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the School of Integrative Plant Science as part of courses GDEV 4961, AEM 4961, NTRES 4961, GDEV 6960, AEM 6960, and NTRES 6960.
