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Through his work at the Geohealth Lab at CRSSA, Dr. David Tulloch integrates the geographic information sciences and human health research into landscape architecture. In 2010 Dr. Tulloch was an invited participant at the inaugural Geodesign Summit, at which the overlap between landscape architecture, planning, GIS, geography, and computer science, were reconceptualized as a single field of work. As an early leader in this emerging area of geodesign, he is widely published on the subject (Tulloch 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019). He organized and led a geodesign panel for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

The same advances in geospatial technologies that have empowered the geodesign community (e.g., interactive mapping, improved user interfaces, cloud computing, mobile mapping on personal devices, open source tools) also create new opportunities for integrating public participation in planning and design processes. Seeking to contribute to the conversation about such platforms, he served on the Organizing Committee for the first three Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) Conferences (2002, 2003, 2004), including the inaugural meeting hosted at Rutgers. His pioneering role in both PPGIS and VGI were recognized with my successful applications for funded participation in their respective specialist meetings (1998 and 2007).

Human health has become a primary area of application for these topics. With funding from NIH and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he has spent over a decade as part of a multidisciplinary team examining linkages between the food and physical activity environment and patterns of childhood obesity. Collaborating with a team at Rutgers’ Center for State Health Policy and Arizona State University, he has inventoried the changing urban landscapes of 5 New Jersey cities across nearly a decade, mapping changes in the food environment and activity environments available to children and then comparing those with the obesity measures and locations of over 1,500 young residents. This “team science” approach was essential to prove the positive impact for children living within a half mile of parks or the detrimental impact for children within ¼ mile of corner stores (DeWeese et al. 2013; Ohri-Vachaspati et al. 2013; Tang et al. 2014; Lorts et al. 2019; Ohri-Vachaspati et al. 2019).

Helping expand and formalize that geospatial health research, he developed a structured research team called the Geohealth Lab group within the larger (and quite supportive) setting of the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis. Not only does the lab support research, but it also hosted workshops and engaged community groups in New Jersey. Today the lab group has “alumni” that include a professional community planner and a Ph.D. student studying citizen science GIS at UNC-Chapel Hill and a current undergraduate whose experiences at the lab helped her spend the summer of 2019 in Columbia University’s Biostatistics Epidemiology Summer Training (BEST) Diversity Program.

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Run by our department chair Richard Alomar, the Office’s primary purpose is to raise the visibility of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) and Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) expertise and resources available to address issues affecting urban residents and their communities. These objectives will be advanced through the Office’s efforts to coordinate and facilitate programming to address food security, individual and community health, resource stewardship, urban agriculture and food chains, environmental planning and design, and other concerns facing our state’s urban communities.

Recent projects and programs highlighted on this website represent just some of the ways in which we engage and collaborate for a healthy, equitable and resilient future in New Jersey.

Website for the Office of Urban Extension and Engagement

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Working through the Center for Resilient Landscapes with Dr. Frank Gallagher, former superintendent of Liberty State Park, a number of our students have been able to work on applied projects in one of New Jersey’s most visited urban parks. One example is the work of Nichole Cohen (MLA ’19) whose thesis explored an ecologically revelatory design approach meant to transform visitor experiences to a post-industrial section of the park.

Traversing Urban “Wildlands”: An Intervention within the Unique Plant Communities of Liberty State Park

This project considers the urban “wildland” as an opportunity to provide residents in cities with access to self-organizing nature. The 250-acre interior portion of Liberty State Park in Jersey City is a spontaneously vegetated site where the railyard for the Central Railroad of New Jersey was once located. This thesis explores what non-traditional design strategies can be implemented on a post-industrial site that has been colonized by unique plant communities. Research on fourth-nature, post-industrial landscapes, and urban ecology reveals the complexities involved with urban landscapes. Such landscapes are highly disturbed by humans and are often contaminated.

A design is proposed that considers the current conditions of the site as well as how the site has transformed over time. The design consists of an educational trail that allows users to enter and experience the site and provides opportunities for people to learn about urban ecology and interact with urban nature. Several destinations exist along the trail where users can learn about the landscape. Overall, the project explores the various possibilities that can be realized within unique plant communities.

Read the thesis.