Professor David Pijawka received his Ph.D. from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, in Geography specializing in Environmental Resources Management, Hazards and Risk Assessment and Societal Perception and Behavior. He has been a member of the Arizona State University faculty since 1983 in various capacities including Professor of Planning in the College of Design, Director of the college-wide Ph.D. program in Environmental Design and Planning, Director of the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy, and Assistant Director, Center for Environmental Studies. He is a partner in a highly-specialized research firm, Urban Environmental Research that has conducted numerous studies on the socioeconomic impacts of high-level nuclear waste disposal and disaster preparedness.
He is recognized for his path-breaking work in environmental systems assessment including waste minimization and hazardous waste management, solid waste and recycling, life-cycle assessment and ecological footprint analysis, and social acceptance of hazardous and energy technologies. He was funded by the US EPA to evaluate how to build sustainable communities in the US Southwest and to examine public tradeoff preferences with alternative energy technologies. Dr. Pijawka was also asked to develop sustainability indicators for various communities as planning and policy tools including those for the US-Mexico Border Region. His work in urban sustainability involves green homebuilding practices, measures for sustainability footprints, environmental justice, and public acceptability of environmental risks. His most recent work involves developing visualization tools for decision making in the area of sustainable design and collaborative design processes for urban revitalization.. Over the last decade he has managed significant projects involving sustainability sciences in Mexico and has been funded by the US Agency for International Development to establish bi-national university partnerships for sustainability. He is currently writing on sustainability education and has joined the International Institute for Sustainabilityat Arizona State University.
Dr. Pijawka has consulted with many local and federal government agencies including Maricopa County, Arizona, Clark County, Nevada, US Department of Energy, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Transportation and numerous communities and industries. For the US Department of Transportation he developed the GIS- Risk Assessment System for evaluating transportation accidents involving hazardous materials and has recently evaluated emergency response capacities involving simulated nuclear waste accidents.
He has received the following awards among others:
2003 Planning Accreditation Board, Certificate of Outstanding Service
1997 Aaron Wildavsky Book Award, Policy Studies Organization
1997 Governor’s Pride in Arizona Award for Environmental Leadership
1996 President’s Award for Environmental Excellence, Valley Forward Association, Co-Recipient
1993 Leg of the Stool Award, Excellence in Teaching, School of Public Affairs
1992 Leg of the Stool Award, Excellence in Public Service,School of Public Affairs
David’s principal areas of research include interest in sustainable design measures, socioeconomic impacts of hazardous technologies, environmental justice, environmental systems planning and disaster preparedness and response assessments. His principal areas of teaching interest include Sustainable Cities, Environmental Planning, Disaster Management, Interdisciplinary Research Methods, and Urban Planning. He is recognized in developing interdisciplinary education programs for sustainability and has been a reviewer for numerous proposed university programs around the country and a speaker on this topic.
Contact Information
Office: School of Planning, Arch 216 and International Institute for Sustainability, Tempe Center 923
Phone: ( 480)727-7319/(602)495-9514/ (602)405-0662 cell
E-mail: Pijawka@asu.edu
