Research Affiliates

Dr. Joy Amulya works domestically and internationally to promote research and practice in the implementation, support, and evaluation of community and development initiatives. The primary focus of her work has been to apply her background in human development to creating innovative methods for learning and engaging knowledge generated from community-based work. At the Center for Reflective Community Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she co-developed a learning technology called Critical Moments Learning, which has been widely implemented in domestic and international settings. She has extensive experience designing and implementing strategies for learning and knowledge building with community organizations, project teams, philanthropic institutions, university courses, service learning teams, and research groups. Dr. Amulya has also directed large-scale participatory and empowerment evaluation projects, and trained students and faculty in methods for engaging the knowledge and experience of community practitioners. Her current work focuses on community health, indigenous knowledge, community-engaged research, HIV/AIDS, women’s empowerment, and issues related to children living in poverty.

Dr. Ernesto G. Arias is professor emeritus in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado. After his retirement from CU in the fall of 2006, he moved to Costa Rica where he serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Costa Rica’s National Institute of High Technology (CENAT). A two-time Fulbright Scholar and Associate Director of the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design at the University of Colorado, he takes an active interest in technologies that support place-based education and collaborative learning communities.

Dr. Sheridan Bartlett is a senior research associate in the Human Settlements Program at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London, England. She works mostly in South Asia supporting various organizations in research, staff training and program development related to children. , and is the managing editor of IIED’s journal, Environments and Urbanization. Recent work has focused on children and conflict in Nepal, community-based planning in post-tsunami reconstruction, and rebuilding after disasters with children in mind. Her publications include a UNICEF Innocenti Digest on urban children with David Satterthwaite, a review of children’s rights and the physical environment for Save the Children, Sweden, and articles in various journals on topics related to children’s environmental health and urban governance.

Dr. Sudeshna Chatterjee is a principal of Kaimal Chatterjee & Associates, New Delhi. She is the urban design consultant for the new capital city, Naya Raipur and involved in conceptualising and designing several new schools across India in diverse climatic and cultural contexts. Her research interests explore the intersections between childhood, child friendly places, and globalizing cities; children and young people’s agency and the production and consumption of place; and the politics of displacement and urban development. Dr. Chatterjee is a visiting faculty in the graduate department of Urban Design in the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and the News Archive Editor for Children, Youth and Environments.

Dr. Michael Duffin is a co-founder of PEER Associates. He specialized in program evaluation and environmental sustainability in Antioch University's doctoral program in Leadership and Organizational Change. He was the project director of the Program Evaluation Team in the Craiglow Center for Applied Research and Policy of Antioch New England Institute and has over 15 years experience as an educator and administrator in environmental education programs in New England and the Pacific Northwest. PEER Associates is a small but diverse team that provides program evaluation and educational research services to projects seeking to promote environmental, place-based, or empowerment goals. It is committed to using a multiple-methods, utilization-focused, participatory evaluation process with the intention to help organizations better articulate their vision, align their resources and their rhetoric accordingly, and improve their programs based on evidence of program functioning and outcomes. PEER Associates also helps organizations build their own capacity to reflect on and internally evaluate programs.

David Driskell is the UNESCO Chair for “Growing Up in Cities” and the Deputy Director of Community Planning at the City of Boulder. He is author of Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth (UNESCO/Earthscan, 2002) and numerous articles; teaches courses on community-based planning and action research; and has directed child and youth action research initiatives in Bangalore, New York, and Nairobi. In Nairobi, he is research advisor for the Growing Up in Nairobi project, a joint initiative of Cornell University, UN-HABITAT, UNESCO and several Nairobi youth organizations. His professional and scholarly work has received awards from the American Planning Association, the Environmental Design Research Association, and the American Society of Landscape Architects. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Karen S. Hollweg is a consultant to several national science and environmental education projects and 2008-2009 President of the North American Association for Environmental Education. Much of her 40-year career, which began as a classroom teacher in public middle schools and senior high schools, has been dedicated to bringing together the resources and expertise of schools, community-based organizations, scientists and higher education institutions to support teachers, students, and citizens of all ages in pursuing inquiry-based learning and addressing real-world issues. She was a district curriculum and instruction specialist and a Principal Investigator for seven different NSF-funded Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education (ESIE) projects, and has led nationwide teacher enhancement, curriculum development, and community-based projects. At the National Academies’ National Research Council she was responsible for the dissemination and implementation of the National Science Education Standards and directed professional development initiatives on inquiry and on the use of formative assessment for state science supervisors, school district leaders, and classroom teachers. As Fellow with the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, she designed and led professional development for urban school district leaders. Karen has authored and edited books on team-based professional development, understanding urban ecosystems, program evaluation, and the influence of the national standards. She has served on many NSF panels and several national advisory boards, as well as state and local organizations, and has extensive experience recruiting and training volunteers for local projects. In 2007, she was awarded an Indo-American Environmental Leadership Fulbright to study environmental education for sustainability.

Beverly Kingston is the Project Director of the Adams County Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative, a 4-year $7.8 million grant serving 68,000 children and youth. Her research and professional interests focus on creating and sustaining social and physical environments that support healthy child and youth development. As a former Research Associate with CYE, Dr. Kingston directed a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research study measuring the effects of elementary school playground redevelopment on children’s physical activity levels, managed a Safe Routes to School program in the Westwood neighborhood in Southwest Denver, and coordinated Denver’s Child/Youth Friendly City Initiative. Prior to attending graduate school, she was the Director of the Gulfton Youth Development Program, a $2 million community initiative designed to prevent juvenile crime in a low-income, high crime, immigrant community in Southwest Houston. Her research interests center on the neighborhood context in relation to youth development and children’s physical activity and the built environment.

Alcinda C. Lewis is an evolutionary biologist and lecturer in biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Division of Continuing Education. Her work aims to improve access to life chances of underserved students of all ages through science education, both formal and informal. She is particularly interested in increasing the cognitive skills and confidence of her students and in defusing their fear of math and science.

Mara Mintzer

M.A., Columbia University

Mara Mintzer is a Research Associate with the Children, Youth, Environments Center focusing on the Boulder Child- and Youth-Friendly City Initiative (BCYFCI).   Prior to working with CYE, Mara was the Director of Belle Haven Community School in Menlo Park, California, where she oversaw child and family support services on a low-income school campus.  The integrated programs included an afterschool program that was re-designed to align with the school-day curriculum, a family resource center where parents participated in parenting classes, mental health support, and support advocating for their children’s education, summer school, and a variety of early childhood programs.  Mara has had a wide range of experiences designing and implementing programs for low-income children, families and neighborhoods in New York and California.  Thanks to extensive travels and studies, she speaks French and Spanish.  Mara received her undergraduate degree in psychology with honors from Brown University, and a master’s degree in organizational psychology with honors from Columbia University. 

Tony Phipps

Ph.D., University of Colorado Denver

Dr. Tony Phipps is an international development consultant with more than 40 years experience in community development, information technology, social policy research and program design and evaluation for national and local governments in South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia and the United States. A former Senior Associate and Project Director with Abt Associates of Cambridge, Ma. and ARD, Inc. of Burlington Vt., he has provided research design, technical assistance, training and program management services for international donors including USAID, the World Bank, The Inter-American Development Bank and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Based on his dissertation in the field of Internet use, social capital and community participation, his current research interests focus on the prospects for sustainable economic and social development through school-based digital libraries in slum communities and particularly among children from low-income families. A former Peace Corps volunteer team leader in Colombia, Dr. Phipps developed education programs for low-income families in squatter settlements, and helped found a school that was later named after him. He speaks Spanish fluently, as well as French and German.   He received his BA in architecture and art history from Williams College, and his MS from MIT in urban planning.