- Advanced Materials by Design: Theory and Computation
- African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle
- Agroecology
- American Indian Studies
- Bioethics
- Biomedical Engineering
- Biophotonics
- Chemical Biology
- Chemistry
- Cognitive Sciences
- Communication Technologies Research
- Comparative Political Economy
- Comparative U.S. Studies
- Computational Sciences
- Computational Systems Biology
- Computer Engineering
- Computer Sciences
- Cultural Studies in a Global Context
- Disability Studies
- Energy Sources and Policy
- Expressive Culture and Diversity in the Upper Midwest
- Food Pathogens and Toxins
- Functional Brain Imaging
- Functional Organic Materials
- Genomics
- Global Governance and International Finance
- Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship
- Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program
- International Environmental Affairs and Global Security
- International Public Affairs
- Land Use
- Law, Society and Justice
- Mathematical Physics - String Theory
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Molecular Biometry
- Nanophase Inorganic Materials and Devices
- Political Economy
- Poverty Studies
- Religious Studies
- Science and Technology Studies
- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
- Structural Biology
- Symbiosis
- Translational Research - Neurodegenerative Diseases
- Very High Energy Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Visual Culture
- Vitamin D
- Women's Health Research/Biology of Sex and Gender Differences
- Zebrafish Biology
Cluster focus
The Land Use Cluster is intended to enrich UW-Madison’s capacity to engage and connect existing and new faculty working on land-use issues. Cluster objectives are to explore: land-use planning ethics, dispute resolutions, land-use policy development and evaluation, land-use planning methods and land-use assessment methods. The cluster evaluates the social, economic, environmental, legal and aesthetic concerns related to commercial, agricultural, residential and protected green-space zoning in urban, suburban and rural areas. The cluster goal is to create an interdisciplinary initiative on land use focusing on analysis, management, planning and policy related to land-use planning. The cluster focus reflects the faculty expertise in land-use planning, demography and economics.
Cluster accomplishments
- A cluster faculty member is a key researcher in the North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research project, which involves 28 investigators from across social sciences, biological sciences, physical sciences and engineering. This program is sponsored by a $6.7 million major interdisciplinary grant from the National Science Foundation.
- Cluster faculty collaborated with others on a $700,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to examine the impacts of land use on climate and the links between transportation policy and land use. The grant was written in collaboration with the Energy Systems and Policy Cluster. Other grants to the cluster from the U.S. Forest Service total more than a half-million dollars.
- The cluster helped establish the Transportation Management and Policy Certificate offered jointly through Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and Urban and Regional Planning.
- Cluster faculty also revised an undergraduate course, Environmental Economics, which reaches an interdisciplinary audience that may not have a deep understanding of economics. The course now includes topics related to land economics. They also were involved with developing two new graduate courses in urban and regional planning: “Land Use, Transportation and the Environment” and “Urban Functions, Spatial Organization and Environmental Form.” Another land-use graduate course, Spatial Modeling in Resource Economics, was developed for students in Agricultural and Applied Economics and the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
- The group was also involved with the development of a new Ecological Land Use Planning concentration within the Urban and Regional Planning Professional Master’s Degree Program.
Cluster structure
All three cluster hires have been successful at quickly finding interdisciplinary campus projects dealing with several land-use issues. Everyone in the cluster is affiliated with the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and all mentor students there.
Cluster coordinator, faculty and lead dean
Cluster Coordinator
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Jim LaGro, Professor, Urban and Regional Planning
Cluster Faculty
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Roger Hammer, Assistant Professor, Rural Sociology
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David Lewis, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Applied Economics
- Kurt Paulsen, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Lead Dean
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Molly Jahn, Dean, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences