Research Interests
How do landscapes that we design, especially urban landscapes, impact the health and wellbeing of people? My students and I examine this question by measuring exposure to varying landscapes -- the level of green infrastructure in neighborhoods, or the amount of nature on campuses, or the density of vegetation in urban spaces. We measure the impact of these places on people’s hormones, heart rates, brain waves, psychological states, and ability to pay attention.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Landscape Architecture
Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
Professor, Human Development and Family Studies
Director, Smart Campus Initiative, Office of the Provost
Recent Publications
Jiang, X., Wang, X., He, L., Gu, Q., Wei, X., Xu, M., & Sullivan, W. C. (2024). Effects of virtual exposure to urban greenways on mental health. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, Article 1256897. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1256897
Satheesan, S. P., Zhang, B., Mathew, M., Kim, Y. W., McHenry, K. G., Paul, J. M., & Sullivan, W. C. (2024). Integrating Events and Software Contributions Data with Rokwire - an Open Source Platform for Enabling Smart, Healthy Communities. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.10666678
Wu, C. C., O’Keefe, J., Ding, Y., & Sullivan, W. C. (2024). Biodiversity of urban green spaces and human health: a systematic review of recent research. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 12, Article 1467568. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2024.1467568
Xu, W., Jiang, B., Sullivan, W. C., Webster, C., Lu, Y., Chen, N., Yu, Z., & Chen, B. (2024). Racial disparities in environmental exposures and SARS-CoV-2 infection rates: A detailed population-weighted analysis. Sustainable Cities and Society, 101, Article 105135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.105135
XU, W., WANG, H., SU, H., Sullivan, W. C., LIN, G., PRYOR, M., & JIANG, B. (2024). Impacts of sights and sounds on anxiety relief in the high-density city. Landscape and Urban Planning, 241, Article 104927. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104927