Kristina joined the SDC in 2021 as part of the inaugural cohort of WSU’s Racism and Social Inequality in the Americas cluster hire program. Her area of research is in the construction of social identity, including race, gender, and class, in the built environment. In particular, she has studied historical efforts by American architects to promote social justice through design.
Hongtao’s diversity, equity, and inclusion research focuses on supportive services for women- minority-owned, or disadvantaged business enterprises, training programs for inclusive construction job sites, psychological safety, mental health, wearable technologies, drones, and augmented realities.
Gruen is a historian of the built environment with expertise in American architecture and urbanism of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. His courses employ the interdisciplinary methods of the cultural landscape while emphasizing interpretation, story, and narrative as crucial tools for reading the built environment.
Jolie’s teaching and scholarship explore how landscapes are represented, bridge art and science, and contemplate the importance of place. The objectives of her work are to facilitate acceptance of many positions about landscapes; engender invention, dialogue, and inquiry; and ultimately foster respect and care for the planet and those who inhabit it.
Rahmani’s research focuses on the intersection between critical theory and architecture; his recent work on Dubai looks at the emergence of that city less as a place and more as a post-colonial construct seeking to counteract years of domination by colonial rule.
A descendant of the Yakama Nation and Nisqually tribes in Washington State, Jaime’s research interests examine the historical and cultural perspective of the built environment related to public memory and collective identity through an indigenous feminist lens. In research and teaching, she strives to create learning opportunities for students to embrace their capacity and responsibility to address issues of social justice within their diverse fields of specialization.