Faculty Fellow, 2020-2021
About
Joshua Newell is an associate professor with the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) in the Center for Sustainable Systems. He is a broadly trained human-environment geographer, whose research focuses on questions related to urban sustainability, resource consumption, and environmental and social justice. Newell’s current research can be divided into two primary areas of interest. The first, Urban Infrastructure and Form, focuses on structural features of the urban form (e.g. built environment, transport, energy, and water infrastructure). The second research area, Urban Consumption and Commodities, focuses on the interrelationships between the consumption of consumer products, our responsibilities as global ‘green’ urban citizens, and the role of governance mechanisms and frameworks (including local institutions) in regulating product consumption. Joshua teaches Sustainability and Society, a large undergraduate course, and Urban Sustainability, which is designed for MS and PhD students. He also leads the Urban Sustainability Research group, whose research stems from the conviction that to mitigate (and adapt to) climate change and to address global ecological crises, we need to fundamentally reshape and redesign our urban areas–where more than half of the world’s population already lives, works, and consumes.