Christopher Scott Smith
Assistant Professor
Office: (269)
387-3484
Email:
Location:
3503 Wood Hall, Mail Stop 5424
Mailing address:
Department of Geography
Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5424 USA
Education
Ph.D., Urban and Regional Planning, University of California-Irvine, 2010
M.A., Arizona State University, 2001
B.S., Arizona State University, 1997
Certification
Certified urban planner, American Institute of Certified Planners
Teaching interests
Research interests
Bio
In Dr. Smith's dissertation work, he introduced the notion of an "e-boundary object", i.e., a category of computer-based applications designed to allow diverse communities of practice to synchronize their environmental planning activities across knowledge boundaries. The dissertation was entitled "Mediating Change and Changes in Mediation: Adapting information and communication technologies for just environmental governance, examined geospatially-mediated collective action and environmental communication."
Dr. Smith was awarded a University of California Institute for Transportation Studies Fellowship and a University of Southern California Sea Grant Traineeship. As a Sea grant trainee, he worked together with a team of environmental scientists, policy analysts and urban planners to develop an integrated systems analytic model to inform cost-efficient Best Management Practice placement strategies within an urban watershed. This research translated into two papers published in Environmental Science and Technology.
Dr. Smith has collaborated with researchers on several funded projects and grant proposals. As part of the National Science Foundation-funded Central Arizona Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research project, Dr. Smith managed a historic land use team that employed innovative remote sensing and spatial analysis techniques to characterize patterns of social, economic and environmental change in the region. Dr. Smith presented this work at several conferences and symposia and was awarded a research grant to work with scholars in St. Etienne, France to carry out a related comparison cities project.
