Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years. Much of Beatley’s work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges.

Beatley is the author or co-author of more than 15 books on these subjects, including Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities (recently translated into Chinese), Habitat Conservation Planning, Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age, and Planning for Coastal Resilience. He has co-authored two books with Australian planner Peter Newman: Resilient Cities and Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning from Sustainable Australian Communities. Beatley’s book Ethical Land Use was declared, by the American Planning Association, to be one of the “100 Essential Books in Planning” (see http://www.planning.org/centennial/greatbooks/). His most recent book is Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning, which argues that cities can and must be designed to permit daily contact with the natural world. It identifies a variety of means for doing this, from green walls and green rooftops to urban forests and sidewalk gardens.

Beatley recently collaborated on a documentary film about green cities and urban nature, entitled The Nature of Cities," which has been shown on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) stations all over the U.S. He also writes a regular column for Planning Magazine, called Ever Green, about environmental and sustainability matters. His research has been funded by a variety of agencies and organizations including the National Science Foundation, Virginia Sea Grant, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among others. Beatley holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.A. in Political Science from UNC, a Master’s of Urban Planning from the University of Oregon, and a Bachelor’s of City Planning from UVA.